Premier William Lai (賴清德) yesterday told the Cabinet to provide more accurate forecasts and proposals before its scheduled announcement next week of a set of policies to tackle the electricity shortage in the industrial sector.
Lai convened a Cabinet meeting yesterday to discuss renewable energy options and the policy announced on Wednesday to promote rooftop solar systems, Executive Yuan spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said.
Ministries and Cabinet agencies were told to propose renewable generation plans to achieve the goal of boosting the share of renewable energy to 20 percent by 2025, Hsu said.
The policies to be announced on Wednesday next week are part of a package aimed at resolving five shortages facing the industrial sector: power, water, land, workforce and skilled workers.
During yesterday’s meeting, the Bureau of Energy presented its stimulus plan aimed at encouraging the public and businesses to construct rooftop solar systems to increase the solar power generation capacity by offering subsidies to households that would cover 40 percent of construction costs and 100 percent of design costs.
The two-year subsidy would begin next year, the bureau said.
The bureau also presented a review of the nation’s wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower generation capacity and operating reserve, Hsu said.
Lai told the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Taiwan Power Co to determine how much renewable power generation capacity can actually be obtained and how much capacity is needed for the nation to achieve the goal of raising the renewable energy portion of its electricity supply to 20 percent by 2025 when the nation has planned to phase out nuclear power, Hsu said.
Solar, wind and hydro power generation can often be restricted by seasonal and climate factors, while major technological breakthroughs are needed to effectively tap the geothermal heat.
Lai also asked the ministry and the bureau to provide an accurate estimate of the rooftop solar system subsidy program, its efficiency and budgeting, with the ministry ordered to announce a complete subsidy procedure this week.
The economics ministry was also asked to cooperate with the Ministry of Science and Technology in developing a plan to encourage businesses in industrial parks and science parks nationwide to install solar-panel systems on their roofs.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS