South Korea’s $747bn K-GX plan targets green steel, hydrogen and batteries by 2035
South Korea has launched K-GX (Korea-Green Transformation), a 1,000 trillion won (US$747bn) energy transition plan running to 2035. It targets 100 GW of renewable capacity by 2030 and aims for electric and hydrogen vehicles to make up more than 70% of new car sales by 2035. President Lee Jae-myung framed the plan as a way for Korea to move from follower to architect of the global green market.
The structural point is where the money goes. K-GX centres on five high-emitting sectors: steel, petrochemicals, refining, cement, and semiconductors and displays. It backs hydrogen-reduction green steel, next-generation batteries, SMRs and carbon capture, and plans to commercialise tandem solar cells by 2028. This is industrial policy for an export economy facing tighter carbon rules abroad, not a conventional renewables target. The headline figure also blends public spending, climate finance and private capital, so it should not be read as a government budget.
For India, the overlap is direct. Korea is committing capital to the same technology stack that India's green hydrogen mission and heavy-industry decarbonisation push depend on. That means competition for electrolyser, battery and solar supply chains, and for the export markets that green steel and hydrogen derivatives will serve. Korea's plan is also a financing template for India: it pairs fiscal support with large-scale climate finance to carry emissions-intensive sectors through the transition.
The relationship is not only competitive. Korea and India are reportedly widening their nuclear cooperation to include small modular reactors, and K-GX's SMR support could strengthen Korean suppliers as potential partners. Whether India becomes a customer, a co-developer, or a rival in these segments will depend on how quickly Seoul turns the plan into funded programmes.
Google’s $4.3bn Constellation deal adds 890 MW of nuclear power for data centres
Google has contracted 3,590 MW from Constellation Energy in PJM, the largest US grid. The deal enables Constellation to invest more than US$4.3bn. Only about a quarter of the volume is new nuclear: a 20-year power purchase agreement for 890 MW from upgraded existing reactors, plus a long-term agreement for a further 2,700 MW. The uprates span 11 units in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with first power due in 2028. Pricing has not been disclosed.
The deal responds to a PJM proposal that data-centre customers bring their own power or face remote curtailment at peak demand. The deal turns a grid reliability problem into bilateral contracts, with the largest buyers expected to underwrite new capacity. Because most of the volume is existing output, the net new supply is modest next to the headline figure.
For India, the closest parallel is its nuclear ambition: capacity of 8.78 GW is meant to reach 100 GW by 2047, a path that depends on private capital and foreign reactor technology. The Google–Constellation structure suggests one way to finance that.
A long-dated corporate offtake underwrites capacity additions at existing nuclear assets, so the project does not rest on a utility balance sheet alone. The same logic could apply to uprates or SMRs serving data-centre clusters. It also shows how grid operators may start assigning capacity responsibility to large loads, a question Indian regulators will face as data-centre connections grow.
