The group held a press conference on the "2022 Rooftop Photovoltaic Policy General Review" today (22), hoping that the government will face up to citizen participation as an important part of energy transformation, subsidize community-based micro-power plants, and increase the proportion of citizens participating in power generation.

(Housewives Alliance Environmental Defense Foundation)

[Reporter Chen Jiayi/Taipei Report] When the conflicts between large-scale photovoltaics on the ground and the community emerge one after another, people begin to pay attention to the development of micro-power plants on the roof, which can also be a driving force towards net zero.

The group held a press conference on the "2022 Rooftop Photovoltaic Policy General Review" today (22), hoping that the government will face up to citizen participation as an important part of energy transformation, subsidize community-based micro-power plants, and increase the proportion of citizens participating in power generation.

Wu Xinping, senior director of the Housewives Alliance Environmental Protection Foundation, pointed out that in the process of developing energy transformation, the government often ignores citizen participation as an important part, but Europe and Japan regard citizens as power generation centers.

For example, in Europe, it is estimated that by 2050, citizen power generation can supply 45% of the electricity. It is hoped that the government will face up to micro-power plants and citizen power plants, and legalize the proportion of citizens' participation in power generation.

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Since the Ministry of Economic Affairs' "Cooperatives and communities publicly funded and set up demonstration incentives for renewable energy citizen power plants" has been discontinued in November this year, Wu Xinping also hopes that the government will continue to support the mechanism of citizen power plants.

Wu Jinxuan, an analyst with the Taiwan Environmental Planning Association, said that compared with neighboring Japan and South Korea, the current government support for household-sized small photovoltaics is obviously insufficient.

Take South Korea as an example. As early as 2011, it provided household photovoltaic application subsidies. In 2020, the law was amended with the goal of "expanding independent private participation", so that household power generation equipment can also directly participate in power transactions.

Chen Shiting, a researcher at the Green Citizens Action Coalition, pointed out that although the government currently has a plan for the participation of all citizens in green energy roofs, optoelectronic companies often choose to abandon small roofs under 15 pings and ignore the power generation potential of small roofs under the consideration of economic incentives.

Therefore, she suggested that the government should make a more detailed potential analysis based on the roofs and installable areas of buildings of different ages, grasp the potential of installing photovoltaics on existing roofs, and expand the willingness of the public to participate through subsidies and other means.

Gao Ruping, secretary-general of the Taiwan Renewable Energy Promotion Alliance, also pointed out that the simplification of the application process can increase the willingness of the public to install photovoltaic roofs.

She suggested that the Bureau of Energy of the Ministry of Economic Affairs should establish a SOP for rapid certification of 10kW micro-green roofs; open online paperless application services, and put the goal of micro-roofs into law as soon as possible.

In addition, in order to prevent large-scale power generation companies from splitting power generation equipment into multiple sites and avoiding power industry review, Xu Boren, a researcher at the Environmental Rights Protection Foundation, believes that the government should amend the current "Renewable Energy Equipment Management Measures" in the application process for small photovoltaics. "The provisions on the combined calculation of device capacity include more manufacturers splitting the case site, preventing the industry from breaking the law, and strengthening the photoelectric management of large and small splits.