South Korea expects power supplies in the peak winter season to remain stable even if some of its 23 nuclear reactors are shut following threats by a hacker, the energy ministry and Korea Power Exchange officials said on Wednesday.
The country's nuclear operator, watchdog and the ministry have set up emergency teams to remain on stand-by for two days starting from Wednesday as a self-claimed hacker demanded the shutdown of three reactors by Thursday in Twitter messages, threatening to create "destruction".
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, which operates 23 nuclear eactors to supply a third of the country's power, said on Monday that its computer systems had been hacked but only non- ritical data had been stolen, and operations were not at risk.
However, President Park Geun-hye has called the leaks "grave" and cyber security has been boosted at the country's nuclear plants.
"Even if those reactors are shut, it won't cause any trouble to immediate power supply as we have 10 million kilowatts (or 10,000 megawatts) more power supplying capacity against demand," deputy energy minister Chung Yang-ho told Reuters.
The combined capacity of the three reactors - Kori No.1, 3 and Wolsong No.2 units that the hacker demanded the closure of - is over 2,200 megawatts (MW), according to data from Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO), equivalent to around 2.5 percent of the country's electricity generation capacity.
The Kori and Wolsong nuclear plants are located over 300 kilometres (190 miles) southeast of Seoul.
"We went through the worst power shortage last year and year before last, but now we have oversupply," Chung said.
Asia's fourth-largest economy has for the past two years sought to curb power demand at peak season to avoid blackouts after a series of reactor shutdowns since 2012 due to a safety scandal.
Earlier this month, the government said the country's power supply capacity has hiked by 6,890 MW to 90,220 MW this winter from a year earlier, and that's 8,720 MW higher than this winter's peak demand seen at 81,500 MW.
Industry officials noted 8,720 MW is equivalent to as much as 8 nuclear power plants capacity.
On top of such capacity, an official at Korea Power Exchange said: "We are also setting up additional supply plans in case an extreme cold spell hits or large-scaled power plants are down (because of) a glitch like operating plants that are now at test runs."
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