Although Japan currently remains Asia’s reigning champion of Clean Technology, over the past few years South Korea has been quietly shaping itself up to be a contender in a race whose social, economic and environmental benefits have spurred countries like India and China to recently pledge and invest vast sums of money into developing renewable energy projects, many of which utilize solar power. This January, LG announced that it would spend $340 million over the following five years to buy silicon used in solar panels from a Norway’s REC Wafer, while a 10-megawatt solar park is slated for production northeast of Seoul. LG Solar Energy, an affiliate of LG Group, completed a 14-megawatt solar energy plant in July, the largest in the nation, and the two-lettered makers of the Chocolate announced in October that it would shift a plasma-panel factory to solar cell production. Analysts have tossed around predictions of one gigawatt’s worth of new installations by 2012, and if Korea’s technological manpower and know-how is any ruler to measure by, these aren’t wild guesses. From Forbes:

Experts say green tech is a natural fit for companies like LG and Samsung, which employ armies of researchers and engineers, have expertise in silicon and other forms of high-tech manufacturing and operate their own factories.

“All the basic technology is here,” says Dr. Dae-je Chin, Korea’s former Minister of Information and Communication. “Solar cell manufacturing is simple compared to semiconductors,” he adds.

[Woo] Paik [Chief Technology Officer of LG Electronics] agrees. “It’s a great fit. We already have the know-how on the manufacturing side.”

Korean firms’ venture into solar technology is, of course, not free from the hurdles that face any adventurer hacking into new terrain, particularly when government incentives are scant, policy framework is faint and cheap material is hard to come by. And while Korea’s solar industry may lack the maturity of its counterpart in Japan and the flash and boom of that of the Chinese solar industry, it may prove to be a sleeping, growing giant yet.