KAIST and the Andlinger Center at Princeton University Announce Net-Zero Korea Study to Accelerate Korea’s Energy Transition

By the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment

The launch of Net-Zero Korea (NZK), which aims to accelerate the Republic of Korea’s energy and industrial decarbonization in the near term and strengthen policy decision support over the longer term, was announced today. NZK will increase Korean capacity for energy-system transition modeling through collaboration between the Graduate School of Green Growth and Sustainability at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. “KAIST researchers are excited to be collaborating with Princeton University to create more effective means to inform decision-making on Korea’s sustainable energy and industrial future,” said Haewon McJeon, the NZK leader at KAIST.

Energy-system models are vital tools for understanding energy transitions and helping to guide national decarbonization strategies. NZK, which is supported by Google, the Andlinger Center’s Fund for Energy Research with Corporate Partners, and KAIST, will adapt the pioneering energy-system transition modeling approach introduced in Princeton’s impactful Net-Zero America study. This approach introduced an unprecedented level of granularity to modeling challenges including local land use impacts, capital investment requirements, jobs, and air pollution health impacts. The richly detailed outputs provide actionable information for national and subnational policy and planning and private sector decision making. 

Along with deep knowledge of the Korean context, KAIST researchers will contribute expertise to incorporate impacts of international trade and supply chains into Princeton’s modeling approach. Wei Peng, who is leading the Princeton side of the NZK effort and whose research uses computational models to quantify social, political, and environmental tradeoffs around climate policy, said, “We are delighted to be working with world-class integrated assessment modelers at KAIST.  Integrating our two modeling approaches will build new capabilities relevant for application in many countries, like Korea, where global supply chains and trade are so important to the national economy.” 

Antonia Gawel, Google’s Director of Partnerships and Advocacy, said, “We are excited to support this landmark study in Korea by KAIST and Princeton as we advance our efforts to achieve net zero emissions across our value chain by 2030.”

The KAIST-Princeton collaboration adds to the list of countries where Princeton researchers, led by Chris Greig, Eric Larson, Jesse Jenkins, and Wei Peng, are working with top research institutions on national decarbonization modeling studies, including Australia, Brazil, China, India, and Poland.