Newsletter
MOEA Adjusted the FIT for Solar Projects Due to COVID-19
In response to the recent escalation of COVID-19 cases in Taiwan, on June 10, 2021, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) convened a meeting to review the feed-in tariff ("FiT") of renewable energy and resolved that: (1) solar projects that should apply the FiT for the second half of 2021 (according to the 2021 FiT scheme announced by the MOEA) may elect to apply the FiT for the first half of 2021 instead; and (2) the construction deadline for those solar projects that obtained the recordation approval in 2019 or 2020 to apply the 2019 or 2020 FiT, as the case may be ("Construction Deadline"), will be automatically extended for three months. The MOEA added that if the Level 3 COVID alert is extended after the current deadline of June 28, whether or not to further extend the Construction Deadline will be considered by the MOEA at review meeting(s) for the 2022 FiT on a rolling basis.
In the press release, the MOEA expressed its concerns with the significant impact on solar project constructions by the Level 3 COVID alert, which has been in place for about two months nationally. The MOEA explained that the June 10 review meeting served as a forum to discuss how to maintain the FiT scheme and the target installation capacity while building resilience against the construction timeline to be adjusted by the project developers and avoid "construction crowding out" amid the COVID situation. The decisions made at the review meeting were considered by the MOEA as legitimate and reasonable and appropriately reflect the market conditions and reasonable investment evaluation.