The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment is stirring controversy with plans to assign solar power deployment targets to the Korea Rural Community Corporation as part of its push to install 100 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030. The dispute stems from a system that designates entities holding generation capacity above a certain threshold as "renewable energy deployment obligors," requiring them to build out renewable facilities. The ministry recently drafted a revision to the enforcement decree that would allow it to designate any entity holding at least 100 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, or at least 500 megawatts of non-renewable generation capacity, as an obligor. That brings the rural agency, which already operates 165 megawatts of renewable capacity, within the scope of designation.
The Korea Rural Community Corporation has long handled rural development, farmland banking and the management of agricultural infrastructure under the law governing the agency. Its floating solar projects on reservoirs were undertaken to raise funds for that infrastructure work. Even now, combining its own resources with government subsidies, the agency falls more than 200 billion won short each year of what it needs for repairing and maintaining agricultural production facilities and responding to disasters. If designated as a deployment obligor, it is expected to be assigned an annual renewable supply target of at least 1 gigawatt. That would only add to the strain on its finances and could squeeze the funds available to support farming. Worse, falling short of the mandated target could trigger penalties of 1.3 trillion won based on a 1-gigawatt obligation, according to estimates.
Expanding renewable energy is a policy aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions. But it should not end up putting the cart before the horse by hobbling the agency's core mission of supporting agricultural development. The ministry must consult thoroughly in advance with the agency and other institutions facing designation, and exercise caution so that no unreasonable obligor designations are made. President Lee Jae-myung said recently that "laying solar panels across fallow fields and the like, using what the village needs and selling the rest, is said to generate far more income than traditional farming." Yet reviving the rural economy requires first strengthening the competitiveness of farming itself. Solar revenue cannot substitute for agriculture. Food supply is a national security agenda no less important than energy. Imposing unreasonable renewable energy targets on the rural agency must not be allowed to disrupt food security and agricultural development.
