중국 신재생에너지법제의 현황과 문제점

Abstract

China ranks 1st in energy consumption and relies entirely on energy importation therefore it is important for China to secure an optimum sized energy source in order to maintain its 8-9% of annual economic growth. Since fossil fuels or nuclear energy cause serious environmental problems or have the potential to cause such problems, it is difficult for China to opt these fields as their long term energy measure. Accordingly, China has pushed ahead with legislating policies supportive of developing sustainable renewable energy as their future energy source in order to further develop their economy and enhance the lives of their people, and in 2005 the Renewable Energy Law was legislated and enforced. The main purpose of the Renewable Energy Law is for the central government to provide economic incentives for renewable energy. In order to accelerate the development of and market formation for renewable energy, this law has constructed 5 big institutional strategies: total amount target policy, a policy that requires all electricity produced to be purchased obligatorily, feed in tariff, cost sharing policy and a policy for securing capital for specialized items. This law requires more renewable energy to be consumed, no allocation of renewable energy supply, support for construction and access of transmission networks, tax breaks (value added tax, corporate tax and etc.) to be given, support for research and development and boost self-reliance in terms of technology and facilities. The Chinese government revised this law in 2009, gave preferred dividends to transmission network companies, actualized the policy guaranteeing the purchase of all renewable energy generated and defined the funds for renewable energy generation. However, Chinese legislation on renewable energy is exposed to many problems such as being generally inadequate, mutually paradoxical and repetitive between regulations of equivalent importance and regulations superior and inferior to one another, standardized regulations unsuitable to the differing characteristics of the different types of renewable energy, regional regulation inertia depending on the regional characteristics, lack of connectivity with other related regulations and more. However the Chinese central government has set enhancing the share of renewable energy in the mid long-term as a major task for the country and is spurring changes in renewable energy legislation. Such attempts are worth referring to for Korea’s renewable energy policies and legislation.