Yang Yi-won-young: "Turning a routine audit into a policy judgment controversy... Choi Jae-hyung is responsible"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Wondara] Yang Iwonyoung, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, criticized Choi Jae-hyung, the head of the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI), saying that the BAI's audit result on the appropriateness of the early shutdown of Wolseong Unit 1 was just a routine audit and that he is responsible. On the 20th, the BAI judged that the economic feasibility was unreasonably undervalued in the decision to shut down Wolseong Unit 1, and this audit result seems to be spreading into a controversy over the appropriateness of the government's nuclear phase-out policy.

Yang, who serves as the chairperson of the Democratic Party's Special Committee on Environment, appeared on KBS Radio on the morning of the 21st and said about this controversy, "I think the problem is that something that is just a routine audit is being turned into a controversy as if it were a judgment on the energy transition policy." She added, "I think the head of the BAI also bears some responsibility, and the opposition party and certain conservative media have continuously urged supervision as if there is something inside the BAI. I think that is somewhat problematic."

Yang said, "There is clearly a part where the economic feasibility was unreasonably undervalued, but the reason for the decline in the reliability of the economic evaluation results is due to institutional shortcomings." She continued, "When evaluating the economic feasibility of Wolseong Unit 1, the utilization rate was set at 60%, but since the sales price was based on the high utilization rate of new nuclear power plants, it was not possible to apply the 60% utilization rate to Wolseong Unit 1," and explained, "At that time, there was no standard or guideline on what utilization rate should be used."

She then pointed out, "In any case, it was a deficit," and said, "The management performance of Wolseong Unit 1 was never profitable for 10 years, and it incurred a total deficit of 890 billion won until it was shut down. The BAI only looked at the economic feasibility evaluation without considering this." Regarding the question about 'parts where Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy officials deleted data,' she replied, "That is not something I am involved in," and added, "I think the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy should correct that."

Yang also reaffirmed her position that the government should continue its nuclear phase-out policy. She said, "There are 10 nuclear power plants whose lifespan will end within 10 years," and added, "If a safety problem occurs and an accident happens, everything becomes useless. The power supply and demand in our country is sufficient. The power facilities are sufficient, with about 40 nuclear power plants worth of reserve capacity remaining." She added, "Since renewable energy will continue to increase, I think it is possible to stop the nuclear power plants that will be shut down within 10 years and still maintain sufficient power supply and demand."

Regarding the suspension of construction of Shinwol 3 and 4 units, she dismissed it by saying, "The power generation business permit was not even granted," and added, "Construction has not even started; the government just included it in the plan and then removed it from the plan. It is nothing more and nothing less than that."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.