Environment ministry to halve paperwork for startups in energy and environmental sectors

The environment ministry said Friday it will cut the number of documents startup companies must submit for policy support in the energy and environmental sectors by 50.4 percent, part of a push to reduce the administrative burden on young firms seeking permits and subsidies.

The redesign covers 33 administrative services. Companies applying under the current rules submit a combined 1,626 pages across 395 documents, an average of 12 documents and 49 pages each. Under the plan, that falls to 196 documents and 1,014 pages, a 37.4 percent reduction in paper volume.

Minister Kim Sung-hwan presented the plan at the second full meeting of the presidential regulatory reform committee, chaired by the president at the Blue House. Kim said the changes should sharply reduce the administrative load on businesses.

"With this administrative document redesign plan, companies' administrative burdens are expected to be greatly eased," Kim said. "We will take the lead so that the energy of startup companies in the energy and environment fields is spent on challenges, not on paperwork."

The first concrete change affects onshore wind developers. Until now, an applicant for a wind power generation permit had to measure wind conditions on site for at least a year and submit the data. The ministry amended the detailed permit standards for power generation projects on Oct. 1 to remove that obligation, and developers may now submit wind-field data from the Korea Meteorological Administration's renewable energy weather information platform instead. The change shortens the project start-up period by a year and saves about 250 million won ($188,736) in initial costs for a 30-megawatt project.

Further measures include replacing field data that is costly and time-consuming to gather with data already held by public agencies, one of four redesign directions the ministry outlined.