KEPCO's overseas trip amid people's grudge against power rate system

Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) sent a group of 100 employees to San Francisco for a group trip, spending a total of 900 million won (814,120 U.S. dollars) or nine million won (8,140 dollars) per person. Though the electric utility insists its staff is making a tour of energy industries around the world, the trip mostly consists of tourism. The trip seems to be well assorted as the staff will have lectures by globally renowned scholars such as Stanford University lecturer Tony Seba, an energy and electric car expert, and field trips to innovative companies such as Tesla and Google into its program to make it look like a work-related trip.

Ordinary citizens who suffer unusual heat waves get angry at the news that KEPCO employees spend eight days like a summer holiday in San Francisco that has a nice weather and beautiful scenery. Ordinary people cannot turn on an air conditioner because they fear a pricy electricity bill to be charged in the midst of unusually prolonged heat waves.

KEPCO employees including CEO Cho Hwan-ik have initiated a nationwide energy-saving campaign since Tuesday. As electricity demand hit a record for four times due to the summer heat since July, there could be a potential supply problem if companies resume their production in earnest after summer holidays. If KEPCO wants to encourage people to participate in refraining from using energy at a peak time, its employees should show an example first, instead of having an overseas trip.

Despite the mounting criticism over the progressive payment system on electricity supply to households, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, which has power to adjust electricity prices, has reconfirmed that it will not change the system. To relieve the burden of ordinary Koreans, the ministry temporarily imposed a lower price by one notch last year. However, it does not care about it this year. KEPCO recorded an operating income of over 11 trillion won (9.95 million dollars) last year and is expected to post over 14 trillion won (12.6 billion dollars) this year. Yet, KEPCO does not think about lowering electricity bills for ordinary citizens and doing a crazy thing by sending its employees overseas for a trip with the overflowing money.