Environment Minister Kim Seong-hwan said his ministry is reviewing a plan to subsidize up to 75% of installation costs for balcony solar panels. The move reflects growing calls to expand renewable energy — a purely domestic energy source — amid the Iran crisis.
Kim made the remarks during an appearance on the YouTube program "Kim Eo-jun's Humility Is Hard News Factory" on Wednesday. "Nothing is finalized yet, but we want to bring installation costs down to 25% through combined support from the central and local governments," Kim said. "Owners would be able to recoup the cost in roughly a year and a half to two years."
"If we switch our energy sources to solar and wind, the approximately 200 trillion won a year we spend on fossil fuel imports would circulate domestically," the minister said. "When I installed balcony solar panels at my home 10 years ago, output was about 100 watts. These days, panels of the same size can generate 300 to 500 watts — efficiency has improved dramatically."
Kim also flatly denied that pay-as-you-throw garbage bag prices would rise. Most of the bag price consists of administrative fees to cover waste disposal costs, meaning raw-material costs have little impact, he explained. "Bag manufacturing is contracted on an annual basis, and it is true that manufacturers are asking for higher raw-material prices," Kim said. "But the share of raw-material costs in the consumer price of pay-as-you-throw bags is very small. Claims that bag prices will double or triple are fake news." In practice, pay-as-you-throw bag prices are set by each local government through ordinance, a structure that does not allow for immediate price changes.
