Taiwan’s new PV feed-in tariffs await application procedures March, 2010: A half a year after its parliament passed a renewable energy act (see PI 8/2009, p. 28) and just over a month after approval by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), the nation island of Taiwan put its first set of PV feed-in tariffs in to place on Jan. 25 with no upper limit on system size. But while the MOEA has set the payment rates, it has not yet worked out application procedures, implying possible delays to its implementation. For systems from 1 to 10 kW, the tariff has been set at $14.60 TWD (45.6¢ USD). The tariff drops to $11.19 TWD (35¢ USD) per kWh if consumers opt for a capital subsidy of $50,000 TWD ($1,600 USD) per kW. Lan Chung-Wen, the general director of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), a semi-governmental agency under the MOEA, as well as chairman of the Taiwan Photovoltaic Industry Association (TPVIA), says the MOEA made the decision for the subsidy option to make it easier for homeowners to get bank loans. He estimates its value at between 20 and 30 percent of the installed costs. An earlier subsidy program that provided 50 percent of costs up to $120,000 TWD ($3,800 USD) per kW has been terminated. The feed-in tariff for PV systems from 10 to 500 kW was put at $12.97 TWD (40.5¢ USD) per kWh, but with no capital subsidy. While these tariffs will be paid on all PV-generated electricity, for utility-scale systems above 500 kW, which will get $11.12 TWD (34.8¢ USD) per kWh, Lan says different regulations will apply. He did not elaborate The MOEA had apparently been considering setting the payment period for 10 years with lower rates for the second decade. But on Dec. 30, it decided to simplify remuneration by fixing it at 20 years. The feed-in tariffs, reviewed annually, are currently valid until the end of 2010. »I think this year is quite crucial,« says Lan. »If the growth of installations does not get out of control, the policy will be continued.« At this point, he says no limits have been set up for the amount of installed capacity from the feed-in tariff. Lan says Taiwan installed 7.7 MW of PV systems in 2009, about 90 percent of which was on-grid rooftop installations. This raised a cumulative capacity at the end of 2008 of 4.1 MW to 11.8 MW. Lan says that an earlier government PV goal of 60 MW by 2012 rising to 1 GW by 2025 will most likely be revised following the implementation of the feed-in tariff. William P. Hirshman © PHOTON International, March 2010 Duplicate only with allowance of PHOTON Europe GmbH, Aachen, Germany  back