The Ministry of the Interior and Safety said on the 24th that it will begin in earnest to expand the Sunlight Income Village nationwide.
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) reported the "plan to expand Sunlight Income Village" at the Cabinet meeting that day together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment.
Sunlight Income Village is a project in which 10 or more village residents form a cooperative to install and operate a solar power plant on idle land in the village. It is a village solar model led by residents and sharing benefits with the community. The government sees that, amid a high oil price energy crisis, expanding the supply of solar power will increase energy self-sufficiency and help revitalize the local economy.
This plan was drawn up by the MOIS Sunlight Income Village task force, launched based on the nationwide expansion plan for Sunlight Income Village reported in December last year, reflecting opinions from related ministries and relevant agencies.
The task force plans to select more than 500 Sunlight Income Villages nationwide this year through a project call scheduled for the end of March. Through this, it aims to create a total of more than 2,500 by 2030.
This year, depending on project readiness, the application period will be divided into first and second rounds.
First-round applications will be accepted until the end of May, and second-round applications until the end of July. For villages with high readiness, such as forming a cooperative and securing a site, selection will be pushed by July to enable early results, and for villages requiring additional preparation, applications will be accepted until July to allow sufficient preparation time.
Selection will consider project readiness, such as the degree of cooperative formation, the level of securing resident consent, the degree of site securing and financing preparation, and regional project demand. However, it plans to proceed so that specific regions are not excessively concentrated. Detailed evaluation criteria will be disclosed at the time of the announcement.
For project sites, it recommends securing village idle land or public land to reduce expense. The Korea Rural Community Corporation (KRC) and the Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-water) will survey and identify idle sites such as reservoirs and reserve farmland and provide the information to the public-private on-site support team and local governments. In addition, if requested by a village, they will support determining the feasibility of solar installation through site review and on-site checks.
To support grid interconnection, the climate ministry is pursuing amendments to relevant laws, including the Electric Utility Act and the Special Act on Distributed Energy, so that Sunlight Income Villages can have priority grid access. It will also support the installation of energy storage systems (ESS).
The climate ministry also plans to improve conditions for starting the project by supporting solar installation costs to ease villages' initial investment burdens. It is reviewing ways to utilize various funding sources such as the local extinction response fund, village enterprise subsidies, and earmarked tax (special).
Immediately after the call, the task force will hold a kickoff meeting for the public-private on-site support team, and the on-site support team will begin full-scale activities starting in April.
Yoon Ho-jung, Minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS), said, "Sunlight Income Village is the starting point for an energy transition and a new regional development model that can address the climate crisis and the problem of regional extinction at the same time," adding, "We will work with related ministries to lead the nationwide expansion of Sunlight Income."