Korea Leaders Summit 2025 CoREi Session
‘AI and the Energy Transition’

On Thursday, November 20, Corporate Renewable Energy Initiative (CoREi), jointly operated by Korea Sustainability Investing Forum (KoSIF), UN Global Compact Network Korea, and WWF-Korea, co-hosted Korea Leaders Summit 2025 – CoREi Session ‘AI and the Energy Transition’ at the Grand Hyatt Seoul.

As the spread of AI drives an explosive increase in data center power demand, energy risks are growing. At the same time, AI is being used to address generation variability, a key challenge in expanding renewable energy, by analyzing weather and generation data in real time to forecast output and optimize grid operations. The session explored the the challenges and opportunities facing the energy industry amid the growing adoption of AI, as well as strategies to achieve a sustainable renewable energy transition. 

The CoREi session opened with a presentation by Laura Cozzi, Director of Sustainability, Technology & Outlooks at the International Energy Agency (IEA), titled ‘AI and Renewable Energy: Challenges and Opportunities for the Global Energy Transition.’ Introducing the IEA’s “Energy & AI” report published this year, Director Cozzi explained that data center electricity demand is surging, with its growth rate far outpacing that of the overall electricity demand, with new electricity demand projected to triple by around 2035. Referring to Korea, she noted that Korea is a key hub for submarine fiber-optic cables and has strong potential to become a capital for AI data centers in Northeast Asia. She concluded by emphasizing that “supportive policy environment, grid expansion, and cooperation among government, industry, and the digital sector are essential for AI to contribute to energy security and sustainability.”

Next, Jaekook Yoo, Senior Research Officer at the National Assembly Research Service (NARS) presented Policy Trends and Challenges for AI and the Renewable Energy Transition in Korea.’ He began the presentation by citing the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) survey projecting a substantial potential electricity demand, with electricity demand from Korean data centers reaching up to 49 GW by 2029. He explained that limited grid capacity and substations in the Seoul metropolitan area are behind current considerations to relocate data centers to other regions, and introduced the concept of matching demand and supply locations (co-location) for the energy transition of data centers. To overcome the limits of relocating demand, he also proposed alternatives such as developing an “energy highway” capable of reverse power flow, and introducing separate certificates for end users (Guarantees of Origin, GO) to resolve the conflict in REC demand between RPS-obligated suppliers and RE100 companies.

 

Panel presentations followed. First, Young Hoon Kim, Director of Public Policy for Korea and Japan at AWS spoke on ‘Power Demand in the AI Era and the Role of Digital Infrastructure,’ pointing out that demand is expected to grow for hyperscale data centers with more than 100,000 servers for AI training, a scale that existing substations and grids will struggle to handle. However, he stressed that AI can at the same time become a key technology for improving grid efficiency, and that new challenges in power infrastructure must be met through cooperation among stakeholders.

Second, Jungsoo Kim, Director of Sustainability Solutions Group at ING Korea presented ‘The Importance of Expanding Renewable Energy Investment in Korea in the AI Era: A Bank’s Perspective.’ He explained that because banks such as ING manage the emissions from their investment and lending portfolios (Scope 3), they reflect factors such as the power usage effectiveness of green data centers in their loan terms. He added that a virtuous cycle needs to be established through sustainable infrastructure investment in Korea.

Third, Jongkyu Kim, CEO of 60Hertz spoke on ‘AI for Energy Transition’, explaining that AI can become a key technology for addressing major challenges in expanding renewable energy, such as maintaining the balance of supply and demand on the grid and managing distributed small-scale power plants. He also noted that hourly matching will become important for data center operations because renewable-based operations are tied to the sustainability strategies of AI companies.

Finally, Jinseok Seo, Research Fellow at the Institute for Green Transformation presented on “Managing the Environmental Impact of Data Centers in the AI Era”, proposing transparency and the energy transition as the two pillars of managing AI’s environmental impact. He emphasized that, building on transparent disclosure of data center energy efficiency indicators such as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) in Korea, it is necessary to expand renewable energy across the entire life cycle of data centers and AI, and to broaden the scope of environmental impact management to include water and biodiversity.

In the final panel discussion, moderated by Sunjin Yun, Dean of the Graduate School of Environmental Studies at Seoul National University, panelists Jaekook Yoo (Senior Research Officer, National Assembly Research Service), Young Hoon Kim (Director of Public Policy for Korea and Japan, Amazon Web Services), Jungsoo Kim (Director of Sustainability Solutions Group, ING Korea), Jongkyu Kim (CEO, 60Hertz), and Jinseok Seo (Research Fellow, Institute for Green Transformation) discussed the challenges of achieving a sustainable energy transition in the AI era.

Contact: syseo@kosif.org, nhn5505@kosif.org