KEPCO invested 200 billion won over 5 years to prevent bird power outages, but the number of power outages doubled

(Dangjin = Yonhap News) Reporter Jeong Yun-deok = Korea Electric Power Corporation invested 200 billion won over 5 years to prevent bird outages, but the number of annual outages was found to have doubled.

According to the analysis of data submitted by KEPCO by Rep. Eogyu (Democratic Party of Korea, Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province) of the National Assembly's Climate, Energy, Environment and Labor Committee on the 6th, KEPCO spent 197.9 billion won from 2021 to 2025 to prevent bird outages.

During this period, over 157,000 bird nests were demolished, and over 993,000 birds, including magpies and crows, were captured.

However, bird power outages increased from 66 cases (damage to 29,087 households) in 2021 to 129 cases (damage to 68,431 households) last year.

A total of 555 bird outages occurred over five years, affecting 266,091 households.

This year, as of August, 51,230 households were affected by 98 bird outages.

A member of the fishing organization said, "Instead of just building performance based on the number of birds caught and nests removed, we need to verify whether dangerous facilities were properly inspected and how much capture actually reduced the risk of power outages. We need to improve facilities and expand non-catch measures that reflect the ecological characteristics of birds, and execute the budget based on the effect of reducing power outages."