137 countries have now declared to attain carbon neutrality and net zero emission by 2050, with Taiwan also following the global tendency, while relevant discussions are also seen from the “Recommendations to Public Solar PV Policy” of SEMI this year. According to a survey, over 80% of the public is in favor of accelerating solar development, which is a vast difference compared to 2020, whereas 28% of the interviewees are very supportive of the goal of net zero emission by 2050, with 57.1% of the interviewees indicating a “relatively supportive” attitude.
The survey this year has also incorporated “agriculture, and fishery & electricity symbiosis solar” that is vigorously implemented by the government. 70.4% of the interviewees hope that the development of the industry can ensure no harm is done to the natural environment, while 64% of the interviewees are looking forward to seeing that the production and quality of crops are not affected accordingly. In terms of the promotion on electricity and energy education, improvement is evidently needed since 50.5% of the interviewees did not know that certain products are marked with labels of carbon and reduced carbon, while 56.6% of the interviewees were not familiar with how power bills would indicate carbon emission according to power consumption, and 52.5% of the interviewees did not know that solar power generation does not emit greenhouse gases.
The “Recommendations to Public Solar PV Policy” this year commissioned the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research to draft a “Solar PV Policy Support Poll”, which generated 1,074 valid questionnaires. The public has once again showed elevated support towards energy transformation and the acceleration of solar PV development compared to last year. Interviewees who are in favor of energy transformation have grown to 76.6% under a YoY increase of 2.5 percentage points, while those who are in favor of accelerating solar PV development accounted for 81.8% under a YoY increment of 1.8 percentage points, and citizens who support the 2050 net zero emission occupied 85.3%.
SEMI has been publishing recommendations every year since 2019, and has proposed 5 major recommendations as well as 13 issues this time for the government to consider, which include an acceleration on the stipulation of mid and long-term development roadmap for renewable energy and carbon pricing mechanism, maintenance of stability and integrity in FiT, creation of incentives for local governments’ participation, alleviation on supporting measures for power plant establishment, simplification of the voluntary product certification (VPC) process, establishment of multivariate and feasible agricultural & fishery electricity symbiosis models, as well as the creation of a public site selection database to avoid impact of sites to the environment and society.
(Cover photo source: shutterstock)