2023 Volume 23 Pages 84-97
The promotion of renewable energy is one of the major climate change policies and will continue to be promoted in the future. This paper analyzes the current status of renewable energy policies in transition from two perspectives. That is, it analyzes the situation brought about by the behavior of the targets by focusing on the messages that the institutional design gives to the target populations and analyzes the recent systems for promoting renewable energy from the viewpoint of policy integration (policy coordination and inter-institutional collaboration).
The initial FIT system resulted in conventional development-oriented projects that proceeded based on free decisions made by developers and landowners. The key issues in dealing with problems in the local communities where the projects are located are the prior disclosure of information, participation and consultation in the project decision-making process, return of benefits and contribution to the community, and coordination with the natural and living environment. While the problems have been partially addressed by strengthening regulations in existing laws and by local government ordinances, the promotion zone methods used in recent years are attempting to comprehensively address these issues.
Promotion zoning is a system that incorporates policy coordination to combine the promotion of renewable energy with the community development, and has a high affinity with community power. The recent FIT system has been revised to strengthen the collaboration among these systems, to broaden the scope of certification requirements, and to add the function of renewable energy as a community power. These developments raise new issues in the institutional design of policy integration, such as what kind of projects should be encouraged in the community and what kind of message the institution should present regarding the balancing of values among policies.
