[Column] Solar Power Sites Only Reconfirm Conflicts

Rapid Increase in Disputes Amid Solar Power Expansion
Conflicts in 17 out of 22 Cities and Counties in Jeonnam
Enhancing Community Acceptance is Key for Sustainable Solar Power

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] It was not difficult to find cases of conflict in areas where solar and wind power plants are rapidly expanding. Among the 22 cities and counties in Jeonnam, disputes between residents and developers over the installation of solar and wind power facilities, substations, and transmission towers are occurring in 17 locations and 53 towns and townships. As renewable energy increases, so do conflicts.

The main reason residents oppose solar power is that their livelihoods are threatened. In the salt farm village of Yeomjeon in Yeonggwang-gun, Jeonnam, tenant salt farmers are leaving the village one after another because the salt farms were taken over for solar power. Tenant farmers in Sijong-myeon, who painstakingly drained the salt from reclaimed land created by blocking the sea to farm, are being forced out to other areas. Renewable energy, intended to prevent a global crisis, ironically threatens their survival. For them, solar power is less about being a “key means for future carbon neutrality” and more about the “immediate threat to their lives and jobs.”

Another reason for opposition is that the benefits of sacrifice go to only a few, making it inevitable to oppose the construction of solar power plants in their villages. The expansion of solar power sites drives up land prices, but for residents who do not own even a single pyeong of land, it is someone else’s problem. Rather than compensation for losing their livelihoods, residents who built houses right next to salt farms for salt farming must pay rent corresponding to the soaring land prices. Even when high-voltage transmission lines to send electricity generated from renewable energy pass through their villages, most compensation goes to the landowners.

In all the places in Jeonnam where disputes over solar power are occurring, no one opposed solar power itself. Everyone agrees on the necessity of expanding solar power for carbon neutrality to cool the warming Earth. To raise the share of renewable energy generation from just 6.6% last year to 30% by 2030 and 60-70% by 2050, a rapid pace is inevitable. However, on the ground, only “installation” is emphasized, with no consideration of the aftereffects. A national-level response for “sustainable solar power expansion” appears urgently needed.

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