A Community Energy Transition Model for Urban Areas: The Energy Self-Reliant Village Program in Seoul, South Korea

Hana Kim
Additional contact information
Hana Kim: Corporate Course for Climate Change, Sejong University, Seoul 151742, Korea

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 7, 1-18

Abstract: While community energy initiatives are on the rise, community actions for energy transition in Asian countries have rarely been studied. While it is difficult for community energy initiatives to develop spontaneously in Seoul, there are some success stories there. This study places these successes in context. It analyzes municipal documents, including unpublished materials from municipal meetings, in order to examine how the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) created enabling conditions for promoting community energy initiatives. This study also conducted interviews to explore unsolved issues related to the Energy Self-Reliant Village (ESV) program. The SMG encouraged collective action through financial, administrative, and informational support. Also, this study found that Seoul’s ESV program fostered communities by raising the sense of locality and responsibility and community spirit through various educational programs. The ESV program supported the continuity of community by providing guidelines that relieved the burden on community members. The SMG played a significant role in promoting community engagement in energy transition by affecting internal and external conditions. This study provides meaningful insights that other municipalities, especially large urban areas, can follow to foster community actions for energy transition.

Keywords: community energy; community for energy transition; energy self-reliant villages; one less nuclear power plant policy; community–internal conditions; community–external conditions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/7/1260/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/7/1260/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:7:p:1260-:d:104986

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().