The’extreme cold wave’ that struck the whole country took an emergency in the supply and demand of electricity. As the use of electric heaters has increased rapidly, the demand for power has soared, and power outages are ensuing.
According to the Korea Electric Power Exchange on the 8th, the maximum demand for electricity as of 10:30 am recorded 90,192,000kW. This is a sharp increase of more than 10% compared to the same period last year. It surpassed 90 million kW for two days in a row following the 7th (90195,000 kW). This is the first time that electricity demand has exceeded 90 million kW in winter rather than summer.
On the 8th, where the arctic cold wave continues, a manager is looking at an electric meter in a multi-family house in Jung-gu, Seoul. As the demand for heating power surges due to a cold wave across the country, it is showing the highest demand for electricity in winter. News 1
– The worst cold wave hit the country in 35 years. Electricity demand soared as the use of electric heaters increased significantly due to the strong cold, when the minimum temperature fell to minus 26 degrees Celsius.
On the 7th, the supply reserve power (98213,000kW) minus the maximum power demand dropped to 8018,000kW. That is the amount of electricity that can be produced by rotating generators nationwide. The reserve rate fell below 10% to 8.9%.
The supply and demand of electricity is tighter than last summer, when the use of air conditioners surged and demand for electricity was concentrated. The reserve rate was 9.9% on August 26, when electricity demand peaked last summer.
In addition to the supply and demand of electricity, the power management was in an emergency due to a series of blackouts caused by a cold wave.
![On the 8th at 5:58 am, a fire broke out at the Sinopyeong substation of Korea Electric Power Corporation in Galsan-dong, Bupyeong-gu, Incheon. Blackouts occurred in Galsan-dong and Samsan-dong, Bupyeong-gu, and Hyoseong-dong and Jakjeon-dong, Gyeyang-gu, which supply electricity from this fire substation. The photo shows a substation where a fire occurred. [인천소방본부 제공=연합뉴스]](https://i0.wp.com/pds.joins.com/news/component/htmlphoto_mmdata/202101/08/292b569a-4161-4d09-af9d-96bac6d18e30.jpg?w=900&ssl=1)
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At 5:58 am on the 8th, a fire broke out at the Sinopyeong substation of Korea Electric Power Corporation in Galsan-dong, Bupyeong-gu, Incheon. Blackouts occurred in Galsan-dong and Samsan-dong, Bupyeong-gu, and Hyoseong-dong and Jakjeon-dong, Gyeyang-gu, where electricity is supplied from this fire substation. The photo shows a substation where a fire occurred. [인천소방본부 제공=연합뉴스]
– On the 9th, KEPCO announced that power outages occurred in 17 apartments from December to 9th last year. KEPCO explained that the pattern is different from the winter power outages in December 2018-February 2019, and December 2019-February 2020, when equipment defects accounted for the majority.
A KEPCO official said, “Recently, power outages have occurred frequently due to the failure of apartment electrical facilities due to a cold wave.” A power outage is occurring,” he said.
In fact, more than half of the 17 apartments where power outages occurred this winter (52.9%) were caused by flooding of electrical facilities due to freeze. This is in contrast to the fact that in the previous two years, there was no case of an apartment blackout in winter due to flooding.
On the 8th, a fire broke out in a transformer at the substation in Incheon, and 38,000 households lost electricity.
An official from KEPCO said, “It is necessary to check the facilities so that power outages do not occur due to the overload of the apartment transformer due to the increase in the heating load in winter.” It will occur and it will take a lot of time to recover.”
Sejong = Reporter Cho Hyun-sook [email protected]
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