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 (林甜宇) 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.
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