South Korean coal burn slumps in October

摘要

South Korean coal-fired power generation recorded its biggest annual decline since at least 2011 in October, as capacity restrictions rose sharply on the month and year. Output from coal plants totalled 17.5TWh in October, down from 19.8TWh in the previous month and from 19.2TWh in October 2017. Coal output suggests that only 64.6pc of installed capacity was used in October, the second-lowest average load — after 64.5pc in May 2018 — in the past six years. The drop-off was driven by coal plant capacity restrictions totalling 11.5GW in October, compared with only 4.6GW a year earlier. On this basis, South Korean utilities were running their available capacity at a 95pc load in October, the highest since March 2017.