TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan’s Minister of Economic Affaris Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) said that reforms to the nation’s energy policy will be announced before the end of January, reported CNA.
Shen said that the government is currently reviewing and analyzing a range of policies, and emphasized the need for energy diversification and for a proportion of Taiwan’s energy generation to come from renewable sources.
In response to a referendum result calling for the scrapping of Taiwan’s target to be nuclear-free by 2025 last November, the government said it will propose a new energy policy within two months. The new policy is believed to include reforms surrounding energy efficiency, nuclear power generation, and green energy.
In December 2018, then Premier William Lai (賴清德) said that the law requiring Taiwan to be nuclear-free by 2025 will be removed, but he also reaffirmed the government’s desire to move away from nuclear power generation in a broad sense, as well as their support for renewable energy.
Media reports also suggest that the state-owned electricity provider, Taiwan Power Company, is reviewing cost and feasibility of continuing nuclear power generation beyond 2025, as well as its current operations.
In response to questions from the media yesterday, Shen said that that the new energy policy will be outlined by the end of the month.
Shen said that Taiwan’s energy sources need to be diversified, and that a certain proportion of energy generation must come from renewable sources. He suggested that green energy is an international trend, and pointed to the commitment to renewable energy by international companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft.
"We must have a power generation ratio that we talked about in the past, and we will work hard to achieve 20% green power generation by 2025," said Shen.
When asked about Danish green energy investor Orsted’s decision to suspend its offshore wind-power projects in Taiwan over reduced feed-in tariff rates offered by the government, Shen said that Orsted is a single case, and other manufacturers are still operating as normal.
Shen said that the energy price review board will meet at the end of the month, and he hopes that wind energy developers in Taiwan can provide supporting information to help the board make informed decisions.