Renewable Energy is something many companies in Korea are focusing on as the Korean government has put climate change as one of their top priorities moving forward. As consumers in Korea become more and more aware of environmental issues, companies will need to react. Therefore renewable energy startups in Korea have been on the rise, especially since the Korean New Deal was passed in 2020.
In mid-2020, it was announced that the Korean government was going to invest $135 billion to create over 1.9 million jobs by 2025. The aim is to make Korea’s economy greener. This is why a major part of the Korean New Deal is the Green New Deal. Furthermore, in 2020, the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy (MOTIE) introduced the 9th Basic Plan for Long-Term Electricity Demand and Supply Plan. The plan sets a goal for renewable energy in South Korea to account for 40% of the energy mix by 2034. Currently, most of Korea’s energy comes from non-renewable sources which are not only expensive but are also unsustainable.
The Green New Deal
Through the Green New Deal, $61 billion will be invested to fight climate change and create a green economy in Korea. The goal of the Green New Deal in Korea is to create an eco-friendly infrastructure and promote renewable energy. This is Korea’s response to the United Nations which established the Paris Agreement in 2015. Since then South Korea has begun developing renewable energy advancements. The Korean government laid out plans in the Green New Deal to improve its climate change prevention efforts by decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, transitioning Korea’s energy reliance away from fossil fuels toward clean electricity can preserve natural resources.
Generating a compatible infrastructure requires the help of Korean startups developing efficient renewable energy technology and structures. Below are some of the top renewable energy startups in Korea.
Renewable Energy Startups in Korea
Energy X
Energy X is the developer of an AI-driven platform that allows corporations and individual users to invest in renewable energy projects around the world. Their online-to-offline platform lets investors find crowdfunding, private funding, and exchange opportunities to profit from renewable energy projects. In addition, everyday individuals can own their energy plant in their backyard or rooftop. Energy X is one of a handful of startups supporting not only environmental startups in Korea but also environmental startups all around the world.
Energy X raised $5.1 million in their series A round. This brings their total funding to date to $13.2 million. This is if you also include the funds raised by its fintech subsidiary Energy X Square.
RootEnergy
RootEnergy is a crowdfunding platform specializing in renewable energy projects. With as little as 100,000won, anyone can fund projects and businesses that generate clean energy and create a positive environmental impact. This is a great way to support environmental startups in Korea.
The overall mission is to “accelerate energy transition to create a sustainable future”. However, financing, public acceptability, and mistaken information about renewable energy are the main barriers to speeding up the energy transition in Korea. Therefore, RootEnergy seeks to solve these problems through citizen participation in impact investment.
Crocus
Crocus is a powerful energy data analytics platform that uses AI technology to address essential parts of the energy infrastructure. Moreover, they provide solutions to empower energy consumers to better understand their energy data. They aim to give power to the users by giving users the option to select energy providers that support the better interpretation of personalized data and provide optimized programs. Users can then identify new efficiency opportunities if they know what will happen in the future based on the data.
Gridwiz
Gridwiz operates its DER (Distributed Energy Resource) integration platform called Forest. It provides flexibility to the grid with gigawatt-scale DER resources, including demand resources, energy storage, renewable energy, and electric vehicles. Moreover, Gridwiz provides customized clean energy solutions based on each customer’s real-time energy pattern and environment. These solutions include EPC, operation systems, and solar power stations.
Gridwiz has built solar stations on underused rooftops of tunnels and factories. In addition, they have installed solar panels as canopies for parking lots to provide a pleasant environment for drivers.
Standard Energy
Standard Energy develops vanadium ion batteries. Vanadium ion batteries offer advantages over lithium-ion regarding safety and sourcing. There will be a shortage of lithium-ion batteries as they will be used more and more to power hardware that needs to be mobile. This includes EVs and smartphones. However, Vanadium ion batteries are for stationary objects such as power plants and charging stations. They were able to raise over $22 million. To date, Standard Energy has done over 1 million battery testing hours. Therefore, they hope that Vanadium ion batteries create a new standard for the global ESS market.
