Gwangju City Promotes Customer Participation Green Tariff Service

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 11th that it has been promoting the ‘Customer Participation Green Rate Service’ since this month, where consumers install the ‘Akkim-e’ app on their smartphones to check electricity usage and electricity bills in real time and pay electricity bills with points accumulated through attendance checks and information registration.

The ‘Customer Participation Green Rate Service’ is part of the future smart grid demonstration research project, a national project supported by Gwangju City. Seventeen companies, including the lead company SKT, are participating, and last August, seven apartment complexes with 6,240 households were selected as demonstration complexes.

This new electricity rate service allows consumers in apartment complexes to participate in various rate services such as electricity usage reduction, electricity trading, seasonal/time-based rates, and renewable energy combined rates, and receive various benefits such as electricity usage and billing information according to the participation rate.

Participating companies including SKT have been providing electricity usage information by installing IoT electricity meters, smart plugs, and the Akkim-e app free of charge in the demonstration complexes since February. They also plan to hold an event this month to accumulate additional points to encourage participation and expand the service among demonstration households.

Gwangju City’s customer participation green rate support project is a demonstration project to evaluate the commercialization potential considering the future opening of the private electricity market. The success of the demonstration project depends on how much each household in the demonstration complex participates and shows interest.

Son Kyung-jong, Director of the AI Industry Bureau of the city, said, “Gwangju City, aiming to be a mecca of the new energy industry, is highly interested in and supporting this demonstration project,” and added, “We hope that residents in the demonstration complexes actively participate in the green rate service and help determine the future national electricity service policy direction.”