| 摘要 | 1. Background and Issues
As the volatility of the international oil prices intensified due to two rounds of oil shocks in the 1970s, the energy supply security emerged as an important issue in the international community. As part of an effort to improve energy independency by replacing fossil fuels, Korea enacted the 'Alternative Energy Development Promotion Act' in 1987, and started the new and renewable energy technology development projects in earnest from 1988. More recently in 2008, Korea established the '3rd Basic Plans for Developing, Using and Deploying New and Renewable Energy Technologies', and is currently developing and implementing various policies and policy measures for the two major objectives of deployment of new and renewable energy and promotion of its industrialization.
In order to implement these policies effectively, related agents must play their roles. The central government must play a proactive role in areas where it is risky and costly for the private sector such as demand and market creation, researches on basic and source technologies and establishment of infrastructure. The regional municipalities must play the role as a bridge to connect the central government, companies and the local communities so that the policies of the central government can be implemented effectively. That is, they must play the role of an information provider and coordinator of green growth for the local communities and companies.
In reality however, it is regarded that the regional municipalities are playing a limited role in new and renewable energy sectors. Min Hyeong Lee (2009, p. 12) stressed the need to increase the roles of the regional municipalities by pointing out "in a system where the central government takes a leading role in green growth and regional development, local areas tend to lack autonomous, and the conditions and demands of the local areas are not reflected properly, increasing the risk that the role of the regional municipalities may be limited in merely providing matching funds. Dae Yun Cheon (2011, p. 48) said that "the role of regional municipalities are treated as trivial because the civil servants of regional municipalities have low expertise on green growth".
Having recognized such problems, the government recently complemented the existing policies by presenting two directions, "sentiment" and "symbiosis", and accordingly announced policies of enhancing public understanding of new and renewable energies and strengthening the role of regional municipalities. The government changed the policy directions from where the central government used to lead the regional deployment to where "regional groups take the lead while the central government acts as the mediator".
Thus, the purpose of this research is to examine the policy alternatives that the regional municipalities could adopt in the future deployment of new and renewable energy, assess the level of capacities of each regional municipality for taking the voluntary and leading role, and seek differentiated measures to support each regional municipality according to their characteristics.
2. Research Results
There were already case studies of cities responding to their internal and external energy environments, and successfully taking the lead in promoting new and renewable energy projects in order to establish sustainable energy systems. Through these systems, the cities were contributing to improving economic levels and the living standards of the local people. What these cities had in common was that they were all maximizing policy effects by selectively adopting measures for management & operation by leadership, management & operation utilizing authority, management & operation by incentives, strengthening capacities through education and public relations, and inducing voluntary behaviour.
Most of these policy measures were similar to those which the central government had been adopting, except that they were suitably adjusted according to the characteristics and environment of each region. In cases where a central government was already implementing related policies, the regional municipalities had strengthened regulations or incentives than those of the state policies or had set stricter guidelines and were encouraging them. In some cases, regional municipalities were adopting and implementing policy measures that the central government were not. These were cases of very proactive and aggressive municipalities which are sometimes benchmarked by other regional municipalities or even adopted as state policies.
Meanwhile, district level regional municipalities in Korea were estimated to have very low promotion bases for new and renewable energy project. Promotion bases were estimated based on three major items: awareness of necessities of new and renewable energy of district level regional municipalities and local people, willingness and effort for expansion, and level of infrastructure for promotion. Willingness for expansion of regional municipalities were estimated to be a little more than middle, but the basic infrastructures such as manpower and organization, expertise, monitoring system, evaluation system and follow-up management system were estimated to be below middle. Especially, the regional municipalities' capacities of procuring financial resources such as matching funds in the regional deployment projects and experience in establishing regional energy plans were both estimated to be 'low'.
In order to comprehensively evaluate the bases and capacities for promoting new and renewable energy projects of each metropolitan area and city, we developed a "new and renewable energy regional innovation capacity index (RICI)" which consists of a regional awareness index (RAI), regional willingness index (RWI), and regional infra index (RPI). We calculated the RICI utilizing 15 separate items including 4 items related to regional awareness, 4 items related to regional willingness, and 7 items related to level of infrastructure.
In order to derive differentiated supporting policies for each region, we classified fifteen metropolitan cities and provinces into four groups according to level of economic development and RICI, and presented differentiated policies taking into account the new and renewable energy sources suitable for the industrial conditions.
The regions in Group 1 are regions with relatively high economic level and capacity for new and renewable energy projects. We estimate that these regions would need policies which make opportunities to realize the high capacities through development and promotion of practical projects. Environments need to be created where capital intensive projects can be developed by utilizing the relative high level of economic conditions. Group 2 are regions which have high capacities for new and renewable energy but have relatively low economic level. For these regions, the priority must be placed on financial support and the direction must be made towards providing support so that they could exercise their high innovation capacities. Group 3 consists of regions where their economic conditions and capabilities for new and renewable energy businesses are both relatively low. For these regions, first of all, it is necessary to emphasize improving the awareness of and willingness for expansion of new and renewable energy of the local people and regional municipalities, and focus on adopting related policy measures. Group 4 consists of regions which have high economic level but insufficient conditions to voluntarily develop and carry out new and renewable energy projects. Like Group 3, it is necessary to expand social learning opportunities of the regions in Group 4 by focusing on education and public relations.
3. Policy Suggestions
In a situation where the government has limited budget and resources, it is possible to seek efficiency in executing budgets by providing differentiated support for each region through 'selection and concentration' according to the development type of each region. In addition, we think it would be possible to maximize the effectiveness of execution of budgets by strengthening capacities tailored around each region, and achieve the policy goals efficiently as well.
Considering that the promotion bases and capacities of municipalities for new and renewable energy projects in Korea are not high in general, it is necessary to put in place support policies that have a general effect to all metropolitan cities and provinces, at the same time of providing the aforementioned differentiated support policies, thereby enhancing the regional capability effectively.
First of all, the cases of Greensburg in the United States taught us a lesson that organic cooperation through close relationship building between the central government and the regional municipalities can lead the new and renewable energy projects of regional municipalities to success. The government should clarify with the regional municipalities about who does what, and strengthen connectivity with new and renewable energy related organizations, and establish a cooperative system through which it could provide the expertise that the regional municipalities need.
Second, as can be seen from the cases abroad, the central governments created demands and markets for regional new and renewable energy projects through various policy means, and secured economic feasibility of the projects. Thus the government should continuously monitor and complement the policy means so that the RPS system which will take effect from 2012 will successfully take root. In addition, the government should think about adopting policy measures that could further expand new and renewable energy markets in the medium to long term taking into account the situations of related industries in Korea and the maturity of Korean citizens, for instances policies such as renewable heat obligation (RHO), renewable heat incentive (RHI), and renewable fuel standard (RFS).
Third, successful new and renewable energy businesses had been initiated after a social consensus was reached and thus public acceptance matured through a long period of discussions by all stakeholders such as regional municipalities, regional citizens, regional companies, regional leaders, NGOs, and expert groups from the project planning phase. Promoting the projects in haste engrossed with showing short term performances could result in difficulties due to conflict and opposition from related parties. It is necessary to make a long term approach of inducing continuous social participation by regional members through expansion of social learning opportunities and improvement of understanding of new and renewable energy businesses.
Fourth, it could be seen from the cases abroad that the regional municipalities were presenting clear goals that the region needed to accomplish through the new and renewable energy projects. Korea is also presenting new and renewable energy��s shares of total primary energy demand that should be achieved by 2015 for each regional municipalities. The government should vitalize communication between the central government and regional municipalities and give the right signals to regional citizens and companies regarding how it will provide support by establishing specific plans so that those objectives could be achieved smoothly.
Fifth, one of the obstacles to deploying new and renewable energy is the NIMBY phenomenon, which, in some cases of abroad, is being overcome by local communities as they participate in the project themselves and share the profits. This type of model can be an alternative where public acceptance can be heightened and the private sector could complement the limited financial capability of the government. It is necessary to develop project models suitable for the Korean environment and encourage participation of the private sector, thereby overcoming the limitations of financial resources and improve the public acceptance. |
