에너지 복지 실현을 위한 입법적 과제

There have been several legislative attempts to institutionalize energy welfare. The recently revised Energy Law 2015 provides the basis for the implementation of the energy welfare project and the use of energy voucher. According to the law, households with elderly, children, and disabled people within a certain level of income or less, can receive energy voucher. It is important to establish and implement concrete support projects for energy poverty as a means to reflect legislative demand for energy welfare and institutionalize it. However, it is clear that a comprehensive approach to the issue of energy welfare will be a more fundamental prescription from a national policy standpoint. For this purpose, this paper recalls the problems of the energy welfare legislation which has been stagnant in the past, and examines feasible alternatives. In particular, I will compare and review the legislation on energy poverty support in the United States and the UK, among those countries that have made policy and legislative efforts to address energy poverty in the early days. Both countries are early adopting leading legislation and policies to address energy poverty. Since the oil crises of the 1970s, the United States has continued to pay attention to the support and relief of the energy poverty, and since 2000, the United Kingdom has been making concrete efforts by linking climate change responses and energy poverty issues through legislation. At present, the scope of energy welfare needs not only the existing idea of supporting low-income people who are weak in economic situation and ability, but also the division of general and energy welfare, energy equality and justice, and climate change. In this paper, I emphasized three aspects: the necessity of legislation considering the energy related legal system; the clarification of the concept and object of the energy welfare service; and the concurrent utilization of the indirect support system for the diversification of the energy welfare service.