Solar energy associations yesterday urged the government to streamline a review of solar installations to help local companies ride through an industry slump, as some large-scale solar projects above fisheries were stalled due to new environmental protection regulations.
“The new legislations deepen the industry slump faced by solar and wind energy companies,” Taiwan Photovoltaic Industry System Association (TPISA) chairman Ryan Shen (沈尚弘) told a news conference in Taipei.
“The new legislations tighten the oversight, leaving prolonged administrative procedures. That is adding to the already struggling solar companies,” Shen said.
Photo: Chang Hui-wen, Taipei Times
The Legislative Yuan last month passed amendments to three acts — the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法), the Act for the Development of Tourism (發展觀光條例) and the Geology Act (地質法) — which significantly restrict the installation of solar panels.
Frequent changes in the government’s energy policies have triggered chain effects in the solar industry supply chain and blocked some foreign investors from entering the local market, Shen said.
In addition, insufficient green energy supply would dent the competitive edge of local exporters as green energy adoption has become a major consideration of their global customers, he said.
“To shore up investors’ confidence, the government should build a more efficient review mechanism under the same standards,” he said.
As most of Taiwan’s semiconductor companies, led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), have joined RE 100 initiatives to boost green energy adoptions, they are feeling the pinch of a shortfall in renewable energy supply in Taiwan, TPISA board director Norman Tsai (蔡佳晉) said.
Green energy demand by local manufacturers is expected to rise to about 40 billion kilowatts per hour by 2030, with half of the scale consumed by semiconductor companies, New Energy Power Co (永鑫能源) board director Kent Hu (胡根地) said.
Green energy supply constraints would force local manufacturers to allocate their production lines overseas or to locations with a sufficient supply of renewable energy, Hu said.
Star Shining Energy Corp (星耀能源) chairman T.Y. Lin (林恬宇) said that solar companies are facing challenges, such as securing land to deploy solar panels, time-consuming reviews, insufficient green energy supply and delays in energy storage deployment.
Photovoltaic Generation System Association chairman Thomas Hsu (許俊吉) added that the government has lagged behind its plan to install 20 gigawatts of solar panels by next year.
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
RSS