TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- Premier Lai Ching-te (賴清德) announced yesterday "The citizens' green rooftop participation and action plan," a plan to encourage to consumers to generate electricity on their roofs with the government to subsidize 40 percent of the construction cost, starting next year and running until 2020, reported Liberty Times.

Full details on the subsidies for panel installation and the state-owned Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower, 台電) purchase rate will be announced by the Ministry of Economic Affairs' Bureau of Energy within a week.

Lin Te-fu (林德福), a spokesman for Taipower said the green energy roof program has three directions: First, promotions directed at homes, communities, and green energy cities. Second, is subsidize the installation of green roofs in rural and tribal areas. Third, require large-scale industrial power generators to install a certain percentage of solar photovoltaics.

In order to encourage the public to participate, the government will provide incentives including covering the cost of planning solar facilities on residents' roofs, a 40 percent subsidy on the installation costs, cutting the application process from 36 days to within a month, and amending relevant regulations and executive orders to allow a wider spectrum of buildings to install solar panels.



Solar panels on roof of building that houses Nanmen Market in Taipei. (CNA image)

As for illegal structures built on rooftops, solar panels can still be built on such buildings, as long as they are separate from the illegal construction, said Deputy Interior Minister Huang Ching-chun (花敬群). Cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) emphasized that this does not legitimize illegal rooftop structures, such additions are still not legal, but will be considered separate from legally permitted solar panels.

The Bureau of Energy said that through the subsidies, which will be drawn from the Renewable Energy Development Fund, the government can achieve its target of attaining three gigawatts of solar power capacity through such rooftop panels in Taiwan by 2020, five years earlier than originally anticipated.

Economics Minister Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) said that three gigawatts is the equivalent to the power produced by six units at the Taichung Power Plant, which is one of the largest coal-fired power stations in the world.

As part of the government's 2025 non-nuclear home policy, the proportion of sources of electricity will be adjusted to 50 percent natural gas, 30 percent coal, and 20 percent renewable energy. Renewable energy will include wind power, solar photovoltaics, and hydroelectric power.



Closeup of solar panels on roof of building that houses Nanmen Market in Taipei. (CNA image)