Premier Chang San-cheng today visited the Longjing Land Photovoltaic (PV) System adjacent to the Taichung Power Plant and commended Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) for its attempts to develop new energy sources and for devoting a large area to solar power generation.
Concerns about environmental protection and safety in recent years have created strong expectations by the public for wind and solar power generation, Chang stated. He expects Taipower to publicize the experiences it has gained, the limitations it has discovered, and the level of solar power the nation can presently generate, so that citizens will have more objective and pragmatic expectations of the nation's energy development.
Regarding traditional power generation, the premier mentioned that his administration has recently continued discussions with local governments and environmental groups on advancing technologies for thermal power plants in order to reduce emissions pollution.
Taipower pointed out that the Longjing Land PV System was set up in two phases, and the capacities of the first- and second-phase facilities are 3,765.6 kilowatts (kW) and 2,720.34 kW respectively, and amount to 6,485.94 kW in total. The system covers an area of 12.79 hectares, about the size of three baseball fields. It is currently the nation's largest photovoltaic system, has annual power generation of about 8.5 million kilowatt-hours (kwh), and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 4,400 metric tons.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs stated that after the Renewable Energy Development Act came into force in 2009, Taipower expanded its 2030 renewable energy target to 17,250 megawatts (MW), which would cover 27.1 percent of the nation's projected electricity generation capacity that year. The goal for 2030 solar power capacity has been raised to 8,700 MW, with estimated annual power generation of 10.87 billion kwh, or about 12.6 percent of that year's projected national power generation.
As of March 2016, the capacity of the nation's photovoltaic systems had reached 922 MW, an increase of 165 times compared with the 5.6 MW of solar power capacity in 2008, one year prior to the Renewable Energy Development Act taking effect.