Council of Agriculture Amends Regulations to Promote Fishery-Solar and Remove Agricultural Solar, Incorporates Environmental and Social Review into Law, Drawing Attention
In July, the Council of Agriculture declared it would tighten oversight of solar power on agricultural land and instead vigorously promote fishery-solar co-existence. However, in recent years fishery-solar has encountered many protests from aquaculture farmers and ecological controversies. Environmental groups and the Ministry of Economic Affairs introduced an "environmental and social review mechanism" to preemptively avoid conflicts or propose countermeasures before development. Last week, the Council of Agriculture pre-announced an amendment to Article 29 of the "Regulations Governing the Review of Applications for Agricultural Land to Be Used as Agricultural Facilities," incorporating environmental and social review into law for the first time.
This amendment has three key points: First, ground-mounted green energy under ancillary agricultural facilities is limited to fishery-solar, and the provisions for ground-mounted agricultural solar are deleted, meaning agricultural-solar co-existence will be temporarily closed. Second, it explicitly requires that fishery-solar zones undergo "environmental and social review." Third, the authority to designate fishery-solar co-existence zones is newly granted to the central energy authority (Ministry of Economic Affairs).
Although civic groups welcome the incorporation of environmental and social review into law as a first step, they also point out that the regulations are still incomplete, and operators may still divide projects into smaller pieces to evade review. They believe environmental and social review should continue to expand to solar development on agricultural or forest land. Local government frontline officials question how, with the central government amending laws to vigorously promote fishery-solar while localities lack legal regulatory tools, effective management can be achieved.
Council of Agriculture: Rooftop Solar on Livestock Facilities Prioritized, Ground-Mounted Fishery-Solar Co-existence First, Agricultural Solar Temporarily Closed
Wang Yu-chen, Deputy Director of the Council of Agriculture's Planning Department, stated that the Council of Agriculture's 2025 green energy target is 8GW, with rooftop solar mainly on livestock roofs and ground-mounted solar mainly fishery-solar co-existence, while agricultural-solar co-existence is temporarily closed.
Why does this amendment include fishery-solar while deleting the provisions for ground-mounted agricultural green energy? Wang Yu-chen emphasized that the agricultural sector still has food security as its primary responsibility, and with climate change intensifying, agricultural land plays an important ecological buffer role. The fishery-solar co-existence portion has completed trials and has a sound mechanism, hence fishery-solar is added to the law.
Does this mean the Council of Agriculture is abandoning the promotion of ground-mounted agricultural solar? Wang Yu-chen explained that fishery-solar co-existence will be comprehensively promoted in the future, but Taiwan Sugar Corporation is still actively experimenting with agricultural-type facilities, and the Forestry Bureau is also surveying forest land with poor tree cover and unsuitable for cultivation for afforestation. Once Taiwan Sugar's trial evaluation is complete, agricultural-type ground-mounted solar can be added to the law through further amendment.
Regarding earlier media reports that "the Executive Yuan will release 20,000 hectares of agricultural land for solar power," Wang Yu-chen clarified that the Council of Agriculture's policy declaration since July 7 to tighten oversight of agricultural solar has not changed. She believes the 20,000 hectares mentioned by media is likely the sum of 11,000 hectares of Taiwan Sugar's flatland afforestation land, over 7,000 hectares of aquaculture and fishery land surveyed by the Endemic Species Research Institute, and over 2,000 hectares previously designated by the Council of Agriculture as land subsidence areas unfavorable for agricultural operations, which together total 20,000 hectares.
Regarding this amendment being pre-announced for only seven days and during the Mid-Autumn Festival consecutive holiday, not giving society sufficient time for discussion, Wang Yu-chen only explained that because the fishery-solar co-existence mechanism is already complete, the pre-announcement period was shorter.
