Responding to Regional Decline with the ‘Haetbit Income Village’... Jindo Residents Build a Basic Income Model

Hani Village in Gonnae-myeon Selected in First Round of Ministry of the Interior and Safety Competition
Regional Extinction Response Fund to Ease Residents' Self-Financing Burden

Jindo County, in the Gwangju-Jeonnam Integrated Metropolitan City, is expanding its ‘Haetbit Income Village’ initiative, a program where residents directly participate in renewable energy generation projects and share the profits. This initiative is aimed at countering the risk of regional extinction and building a resident-led basic income model that can create stable village income streams.

On April 10th, the village chief group briefing session of Haetbit Income Village. Provided by Jindo County.

Following the selection of Hani Village in Gonnae-myeon as the final recipient of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s ‘2026 Haetbit Income Village Round 1 Competition,’ the county will develop resident support measures using the Regional Extinction Response Fund and officially begin implementing the project.

The Haetbit Income Village project is a resident-led initiative where locals form cooperatives to participate in renewable energy generation projects, such as solar power, and share the profits from these ventures among the residents.

The core of the project is not just about installing power generation facilities but about creating a structure where profits generated from locally produced energy are returned to the residents and the village. This model seeks to establish a stable source of income while revitalizing the community and enhancing energy welfare.

For this first round of the competition, 129 villages nationwide applied, and among them, 86 villages were selected in the end.

With Hani Village in Jindo being listed among the final selections, the foundation has been laid to establish a new rural income model that utilizes the profits from renewable energy generation.

Profits generated through this project will not only be distributed among residents but will also be reinvested into village welfare and community revitalization projects, offering a fresh boost of vitality to rural areas struggling with rapid population decline and aging.

In particular, the county plans to focus administrative support on lowering the initial project cost burden for residents.

The county will use the Regional Extinction Response Fund to cover part of the 15% self-financing portion that residents are required to pay, thereby alleviating the burden of preparing initial capital and reducing financial costs.

By easing residents’ burden of raising funds, the county expects to reduce the funds being spent on financial costs from the profits generated by the power generation business, thereby increasing the actual income that returns to residents in the long run.

The county is accelerating the expansion of the Haetbit Income Village initiative.

After the selection of Hani Village in the first round, nine additional villages from the Jindo region have applied for the ongoing second round of the competition.

If more villages are selected in future rounds, the county plans to spread village-level renewable energy generation projects across the region, developing it into a regional circular economy model that links resident income, vitalization of local communities, and regional extinction response.

Particularly, the county intends to concentrate its policy capabilities on establishing a structure where residents, not external developers, are the main participants in the project and the profits are shared by the local community, breaking away from traditional development models in which outside operators took the revenue from power generation.

Lee Jaegak, the Governor of Jindo County, stated, “Haetbit Income Village is a core model for realizing energy welfare with residents as project owners and for building a sustainable local circular economy.” He added, “By actively utilizing the Regional Extinction Response Fund to sharply reduce the residents’ self-financing burden, we will focus all our efforts so that Haetbit Income truly becomes a stable source of basic income for our residents.”

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