Domestic households with rooftops that are bigger than 30 ping (99.17m2) can receive at least NT$674 (US$22.35) per month, or 10 percent of the feed-in tariffs, from solar power system firms as a reward for joining the government’s rooftop solar power program, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Given that monthly electricity expenses for households that consume 330 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per month are between NT$637 and NT$695, participation in the government’s program would help households save on electricity costs, it said.
“We believe that the reward policy will substantially boost the public’s willingness to join the program, accelerating the government’s goal of achieving 3 gigawatts [GW] of installed rooftop solar power capacity by 2020, five years earlier than the previous target of 2025,” Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) told a news conference.
Photo: CNA
The 3GW rooftop solar power program is expected to increase the nation’s operating reserve margin by 1.06 percentage points, Shen said.
Local governments would play an important role in reaching the government’s goal by helping to find potential city rooftops and select qualified providers of solar power systems, Shen added.
Local governments are to represent the households, communicating with the companies and inking contracts with them on their behalf, Shen said.
“All the households have to do is to submit an application to their local government,” Shen added.
In return, the local governments would receive 3 percent of the feed-in tariffs, or NT$0.19 per kWh, from companies as a reward for helping with renewable energy development, Shen said.
Solar power system companies that wish to bid on rooftop projects must have paid-in capital of at least NT$200 million and the capacity of the installed solar power must exceed 5 megawatts (MW).
Bureau of Energy Director-General Lin Chuan-neng (林全能) said there are more than 20 qualified solar power system providers in Taiwan.
The biggest benefit for companies in bidding on the projects is that the local governments help them find rooftops that are sufficiently large — rooftops with an economy of scale of installed capacity of at least 50MW — to lower infrastructure costs, Lin said.
A project of the scale of 50MW would require about 5,000 rooftops that are about 30 ping each (99m2), Lin added.
Given that the nation already has more than 1GW of rooftop solar power, the rest of the targeted 2GW would require about 200,000 rooftops to join the program, he said.
The ministry is next month to select three cities in which to build 3,000 rooftop solar panels as examples for other cities, Lin said.
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