Environmental groups yesterday called on authorities to close loopholes in environmental impact assessments (EIA) for solar facilities, after the legislature passed a bill tightening regulations last week.
The bill is a big step forward in environmental protection, as it would curb inappropriate solar projects at national scenic areas and geologically sensitive areas, they said.
However, loopholes remain in the legislation, as land subdivision can still be exploited to evade solar panel EIAs on wetlands, farmland, hillsides or reservoirs, while mandatory statutes are lacking for solar projects in national parks or indoor “aquavoltaic farms,” also known as “fishery solar farms,” they said.
Photo courtesy of the Tainan City Government
Government Watch Alliance executive director Hsu Hsin-hsin (許心欣) said that “destroying forests to grow electricity” on non-privately owned, government-subsidized afforested land used to be unregulated, as the Standards for Determining Specific Items and Scope of Environmental Impact Assessments for Development Activities (開發行為應實施環境影響評估細目及範圍認定標準) — which is governed by the Ministry of Environment — stipulates that such solar projects can be exempted from EIAs “if prior approval from energy authorities is obtained.”
While the ministry did not adopt environmental advocates’ advice to remove the clause when it revised the standards in January, it has now been overridden by the amended bill, meaning that solar projects on such afforested land would be subject to EIA review to prevent forests’ carbon storage and ecological habitats from being damaged, she said.
Changhua Environmental Protection Union researcher Lin Cheng-han (林政翰) said that solar projects on regular farmland could be exempted from EIAs unless they cover at least 40 hectares, while those larger projects could evade EIA by means of land subdivision at an interval distance of 20m or more.
Regular farmland should not be stigmatized as “low-fertility land” for green energy development, as they can cultivate high-quality sweet potatoes and peanuts even though they are not suitable for growing paddy rice, he said.
Lin also called for enhancing regulations for indoor fishery solar farms to prevent unscrupulous developers from “growing electricity and backfilling waste at fake indoor fishing farms,” such as the project run by Solar Infinity Co in Changhua County’s Hanbao Township (漢寶).
Forest City Association, Taiwan chairman Chuang Chieh-jen (莊傑任) said the passed bill left out stipulations for national parks, with requirements previously specified in the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法) removed, as legislators thought statutes had been established to prohibit ground-mounted solar panels.
The law should be promptly amended to close such loopholes, he said.
Regarding floating solar panels, although the amended bill requires an EIA for such projects if they cover five hectares or more, they could also evade EIAs by exploiting the 20m-or-more interval distances as ground-mounted solar panels, Chuang said.
To prevent such loopholes, regulations should stipulate that EIAs for floating solar facilities may not be separately conducted for a single body of water, and that ground-mounted solar facilities’ project areas may not be separately calculated if their interval distance is less than 500m, he said.
Miaoli County Environmental Protection Association president Chen Chi-chung (陳祺忠) said that different projects with the same capital source should be regarded as having the same developer to prevent developers from evading EIAs by setting up subsidiary companies.
Legislative loopholes like land subdivision or subsidiary establishment could be tackled by the ministry by revising the standards, he said.
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