• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.909-930
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• 2022

Although the electricity tariff for each customer class in Korea has an institutional basis which can be linked to cost fluctuations caused by the increase in fuel cost, there is a situation in which it cannot be raised in a timely manner, considering the national economic burden such as inflation. There can be some disagreements about unconditionally raising electricity rates when cost increases occur. It is, however, well known that Korean domestic electricity rates are very low around the world and are in an environment in which rates are not easily adjusted. Moreover, as Korean electricity rates cannot be easily raised due to various factors, domestic electricity rates for each customer class itself have not delivered a desirable price signal for power consumption. Based on historical data such as fuel costs and power production by power source from 2017 to 2020, this study estimated how much power consumption would change if electricity rates were adjusted in 2030 and price signal distortion was resolved. As a result of the estimation, power consumption will be reduced by 9,000 GWh if the current electricity bill is adjusted to a level which can be 100% recovered even with the supply cost alone. This led to a reduction of about 3.82 million CO₂tons of greenhouse gas emissions in the Korean power sector.