How can we prevent fake agrivoltaics on farmland and ensure genuine agrivoltaics?

The Ministry of Economic Affairs announced recently that by 2025 the country must not only achieve a nuclear-free homeland, but the share of renewable energy in power generation must also rise from the current more than 7% to 20%. To that end, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Council of Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Administration appeared at the Legislative Yuan yesterday to take questions from numerous legislators. Facing the most controversial cases of the past, in which solar panels were laid on prime farmland, or a "10,000-year mushroom shed" or one or two chickens were used to fake the appearance of actual farming, Council of Agriculture Minister Tsao Chi-hung offered an explanation, saying illegal situations must be strictly prohibited.

1. Which farmland can be used for power generation?

In the Ministry of Economic Affairs' energy blueprint, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and biogas power generation are all directions under consideration for development, and among them solar, biogas, wind, and agricultural activities are the most closely related.

Biogas, for example, is related to pig farming and livestock raising, while the "offshore wind turbines" planted at sea may affect fish ecology and fishing boat navigation routes; as for solar panels, because many parcels of prime farmland are large, they have attracted many operators to move in. Yet precisely because of policy subsidies and huge profits, many unscrupulous operators focus mainly on power generation and completely ignore agricultural use. Upstream and Downstream also published a series of related reports last (2015) year exposing unreasonable forms of power generation on farmland.

Council of Agriculture Minister Tsao Chi-hung said that in the future the direction will be toward "co-prosperity of agriculture and electricity," so that situations where power generation destroys farming will not occur.

At present, the "land" the Council of Agriculture plans to release for power generation has only 3 types, namely farmland unsuitable for cultivation, rooftop auxiliary installations, and non-rooftop auxiliary installations.

So-called farmland unsuitable for cultivation mainly refers to farmland affected by land subsidence, seawater intrusion, salinization, or illegal dumping of waste and wastewater pollution. The main scope is the area announced last August, spanning Fangyuan and Dacheng in Changhua, Taixi, Sihu, and Kouhu in Yunlin, and Dongshi and Budai in Chiayi, 18 locations in total, with a total area of 1253 hectares. To date, 80 applications covering 30 hectares have been approved.

In addition, farmland polluted and remediated through the Environmental Protection Administration, as well as the "golden corridor" within 1.5 km around the high-speed rail line from Changhua to Yunlin, have also been selected by the Council of Agriculture as priority demonstration areas for power generation, and the two combined cover about 1640 hectares. But Tsao Chi-hung stressed that these will only be opened after review and approval by the Executive Yuan and the Environmental Protection Administration, so there are currently no approved cases.

As for "rooftop auxiliary solar panels," that is, solar panels mounted on the roofs of agricultural facilities such as pig sheds, chicken coops, and greenhouses; the "non-auxiliary" type, by contrast, means directly laying solar panels on farmland to generate power.

Wang Yu-chen, section chief of farmland utilization in the Planning Division, said that solar panels of these two types must genuinely involve actual farming, and must have long-term operation, planning, and revenue, which can be described as having to be managed as a model of enterprise development. Therefore, the absurd past situation of using only one pack of 10,000-year mushrooms or free-ranging one or two chickens no longer meets the regulations.