Low-carbon green promotes Korean LED lighting industry

South Korea is a resource-poor country with about 97% of its energy dependence on imports. Energy shortages and rising oil prices have constrained Korea’s economic and social development. Energy conservation has become one of the most important national strategies in Korea. Therefore, the LED industry with significant energy saving and environmental protection value is highly valued by the Korean government. In 2008, South Korea proposed that “low-carbon and green growth” be the national strategy for the future, and the LED industry as the key promotion area.

Large enterprises participate in forming production capacity

South Korea's LED lighting industry has developed rapidly in recent years, which is due to the Korean government's promotion of policies and mechanisms. The South Korean government has been pursuing a strategy of large companies under the leadership of the government, and has worked together with the government to provide funds for companies to nurture large corporate groups. Ultimately, the large enterprise group not only becomes the main body of production and operation, but also is the backbone of foreign trade. It is also a core force for technology development, foreign investment introduction, and information collection.

Korea: Low Carbon Green Promotes LED Lighting Industry

For a long time, the Korean lighting industry has been protecting SMEs. However, with LED semiconductors becoming key components, large companies such as Samsung Group and LG Group have entered the lighting market one after another. After 2010, POSCO headed by large-scale steel makers and SK Group, which has advantages in oil refining and communications, also indicated that they would enter the market. Through large-scale investments by large companies, South Korea has leapt to the second place in the world in the supply chain and other upstream areas of LED chip manufacturing in a short period of time.

In downstream industries such as lighting equipment manufacturing, in addition to these large-scale enterprises, risk companies have also been established, and small and medium-sized enterprises have shown a positive attitude in entering overseas markets. There are about 900 companies engaged in LED lighting business in Korea, Samsung Electronics (LED lighting is a household appliance division), LGInnotech, Seoul Semiconductor and other three world-class manufacturers, has entered the top five global LED revenue rankings. The next goal of South Korea is to strive for the top spot in the global LED industry by 2020.

Focus on popularization to boost the development of the industry

The popularity of LED lighting is the key to the development of the LED lighting industry. To this end, the Korean government successively formulated the "LED Lighting 15/30 Popularity Plan" and "LED Lighting 20/60 Plan" in 2006 and 2011 respectively. The former aims to achieve a 30% share of the total LED lighting in Korea by 2015. The latter set the long-term goal to be 60% of LED lighting penetration in 2020.

In order to achieve the long-term goals set by the two plans, Korean governments at all levels have established corresponding promotion policies. Seoul City has been very active in the popularization of LED. As early as 2007 to 2009, it invested 23 billion won, replacing 156,000 lights in transportation facilities and 38,000 lights in public buildings into LED products. This saves about 1.6 billion won per year in electricity costs. Since then, Seoul City has proposed its own LED lighting penetration rate goal, that is, efforts to make LED lighting utilization rate of public institutions reach 50% in 2014 and 100% in 2018, so that the use rate of private LED lighting will reach 100% before 2030. . To this end, Seoul City plans to replace 7.8 million LED lighting devices by 2014, including 50% of public agency lighting, ie 800,000 baht, and 25% of folk lighting, ie, 7 million baht.

Underground parking is also a key area for popularizing LED lighting. From the beginning of 2011, Korea’s Gyeonggi Province and Daegu City started to promote the use of LED lighting in underground parking lots, and Seoul City and Korea’s LED Association jointly announced in May 2012 “underground parking in an apartment building and large-scale commercial facilities underground parking. The field of LED lighting popularization business "encourage policy, and began to implement from June. According to this encouragement policy, underground parking lots in apartments and large commercial facilities in Seoul City can introduce LED lighting for free, while individuals can purchase LED equipment at 40% less than the market price to replace parking lot lighting. Seoul City plans to adopt this measure to replace all lighting in underground parking lots in Seoul with LED lighting before 2014 to significantly reduce lighting power consumption. If this goal is successfully achieved, it is estimated that about 32.7 billion won will be saved each year.

Cut off sources of high-energy lighting

In order to realize the popularity of LED lighting at the source, the Korean Ministry of Industry, Trade and Industry recently announced that Korea will permanently stop importing and manufacture incandescent light bulbs with low power-saving efficiency from January 1, 2014. As early as 2008, South Korea made the decision to gradually abolish incandescent light bulbs. At present, there are still about 30 million incandescent bulbs in use in South Korea. If they can be replaced with more energy-efficient ones, they can save more than 1800 GW of electricity in a year, enough to supply up to 650,000 households.

Electricity shortage is a problem that South Korea faces every summer. This year, many nuclear power generating units were ordered to stop using the defective components. The thermal power plants frequently experienced failures. In addition, high-temperature weather continued, and power consumption was particularly acute. The Korean government's active promotion of LED lighting may ease this problem.