Taiwan favors rooftop solar installations

Plans to increase solar capacity to 3.1 GW by 2030.

Taiwan will prioritize domestic and industrial rooftop installations, said the Ministry for Economic Affairs. The ministry noted that solar energy grew from 9.5MW to 222.4 MW since the country’s Renewable Energy Development Act in 2009.

The solar strategy was part of a wider aim to increase renewable energy to 18% of Taiwan’s power capacity by 2025. MEA noted that since solar energy cost cannot match that of conventional fossil fuels and because of a scarcity of land, the best strategic implementation for solar energy is to expand at a moderate rate and prioritize solar rooftops for residential and industrial applications in near term.

Government data show Taiwan adding only 10 MW of PV capacity in the first four months of 2013 compared to 104.5 MW during all of 2012. Taiwan’s solar energy target for 2013 is175 MW. The 2009 Act guarantees a purchase price for 20 years of electricity generated from renewable sources in order to promote installations through a feed-in-tariff.