[2021 National Audit] Jeong Tae-ho "Cooling welfare is urgent in summer... Energy welfare budget is focused on winter heating"

Heat-related illnesses nearly 5 times more common than cold-related illnesses
Yet summer cooling budget is only about 10% of winter heating budget
"Need for summer energy welfare projects combining cooling equipment and solar power generation"

[Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] Due to changes in climate and living conditions, illnesses caused by heat occur more frequently than those caused by cold. However, government energy welfare projects still focus mainly on supplying heating energy to vulnerable groups, highlighting the need for improvement.

On the 15th, Jeong Tae-ho, a member of the National Assembly’s Industry, Trade, Energy, Small and Medium Enterprises Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, analyzed energy welfare project data submitted by the Korea Energy Agency and Korea Energy Foundation. The analysis showed that the summer cooling budget was only 10.4% of the winter heating budget.

While welfare budgets are concentrated on heating, seasonal illness statistics reveal that heat-related illnesses during summer (May to September) are nearly five times more frequent than cold-related illnesses during winter (December to February). According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s statistics, which collect reports from nationwide medical institutions with emergency rooms, there were 11,145 cases of heat-related illnesses from 2016 to 2020, compared to 2,210 cases of cold-related illnesses. The number of deaths also showed a similar trend: 96 deaths from heat-related illnesses versus 35 from cold-related illnesses, a difference of about 2.7 times.

The Korea Energy Agency, which implements the energy voucher program, first allocated a budget of 4.4 billion KRW for cooling energy vouchers in 2019 following the 2018 heatwave, increasing it to 7.7 billion KRW this year. However, during the same period, the winter heating welfare budget had already exceeded 60 billion KRW and reached 96.7 billion KRW this year, which is 12.6 times larger than the cooling budget of 7.7 billion KRW.

The Korea Energy Foundation showed a similar situation. The foundation runs an energy efficiency improvement project for low-income households. It first allocated a cooling welfare budget in 2019, which increased to 10.2 billion KRW in 2021. However, the heating welfare budget for the same year was 74.5 billion KRW, showing a 7.3 times difference.

Assemblyman Jeong said, "Combining the budgets of the two organizations, the summer cooling budget of 18 billion KRW in 2021 was only 10.4% of the winter heating budget of 173.2 billion KRW," adding, "Although there are five times more neighbors suffering from heat than cold, the government spends nearly ten times more budget preparing for cold than heat, thus implementing policies in reverse."

He continued, "Simply providing cooling equipment such as air conditioners to low-income households may result in low usage due to electricity cost burdens," and emphasized, "There is a need for policy consideration to distribute cooling equipment together with home solar power generators as a package, enabling the conversion of the summer’s intense solar energy into cool air from air conditioners."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.