※ The attached PDF is provided in Korean.
Achieving South Korea’s 2050 carbon neutrality goal requires a fundamental transition of the building sector’s heating energy, which accounts for 22.2% of national greenhouse gas emissions. Whilst the South Korean government has prioritised the deployment of individual air-source heat pumps, this strategy faces severe structural limitations in a country where high-rise apartment complexes constitute 65% of residential dwellings and the municipal city gas network penetration reaches an exceptionally high 85.6%. This briefing paper argues that instead of relying on uniform individual technologies, South Korea must diversify its heating transition by developing localised, community-level thermal grids tailored to regional housing densities, existing infrastructure, and nearby unutilised energy sources. By evaluating six primary low-carbon and waste heat resources—including solar thermal, organic waste-derived biogas, woody biomass, sewage water heat, data centre waste heat, and waste incineration heat—the study establishes four distinct spatial transition models designed to retroactively transform existing high-density urban areas, plan zero-emission new residential developments, leverage energy-sharing benefits in communities near waste facilities, and deploy micro-district heating systems in low-density rural villages.
Our study’s theoretical resource mapping reveals substantial untapped potential, particularly within urban waste heat infrastructures. For instance, the theoretical capacity of municipal sewage heat alone could supply approximately 10 million households—nearly three times the country's current district heating users—whilst heat recovered from waste incinerators could support 5.4 million households. However, the paper emphasizes that physical potential does not automatically translate into actual heat delivery, as major economic and systemic barriers remain. Realising these localized decarbonisation models will require proactive public grid investments, a regulatory easing of the high heat-density thresholds currently required to designate district heating zones, and mandates for waste heat recovery under digital infrastructure laws like the recent Artificial Intelligence Data Centre Special Act. Ultimately, this report calls on provincial and metropolitan governments to take ownership of their local energy profiles by drafting long-term thermal transition roadmaps, whilst urging the central government to implement a robust national fiscal and cooperative policy framework.
Author
Junghwa HWANG | Local Transformation Team | hjhlucia@igt.or.kr
