Taiwan

While Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and Brazil attracted more funds than last year, China’s transition to an auction-based procurement system and slow performance overall in Europe saw worldwide backing decrease. BloombergNEF does expect investments to ramp up in the second half, however.

In pursuit of its ambitious 2025 solar goal of 20 GW of installed capacity, Taiwan continues to be an attractive market for foreign companies and investors.

The Taiwanese manufacturer has confirmed plans to focus on PERC cell production, while scaling down its operational cell capacity from 5 GW to 2.5 GW. It said it could return to full capacity if cell demand rises again, however.

Renewable energy investment in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding China, will overtake spending on oil and gas exploration and production by 2020, finds Norwegian consultancy Rystad Energy. And Australia is set to emerge as one of the leading investment destinations.

To keep up with the global shift to renewable energies, the Taiwanese Government has passed the first large set of amendments to its Renewable Energy Development Act since the legislation’s inception in 2009. The amendment bill passed its third reading on April 12, 2019, and was designed to optimize the renewable energy environment, to keep up with the changes to the Electricity Act and to increase civic engagement.

Taiwanese manufacturer E-Ton Solar said it will halt solar cell production due to strong price pressure. It is now seeking to sell two of its three manufacturing facilities in southern Taiwan, while its shares have been suspended from trading on Taiwan’s stock exchange.

Despite the difficulties its solar manufacturing industry faces, the Taiwanese government is ramping up its R&D efforts to measure the efficiency of what it calls “new-generation light-driven photovoltaics”.

TrendForce says the country deployed more than 1 GW of new PV for the first time last year, and predicts this year may see as much as 1.5 GW of new solar capacity. The nation’s cumulative capacity reached 2,618 MW at the end of last year, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Motech Industries revealed this week that its annual net loss widened by 124.19% year on year to NT$6.795 billion ($220.5 million), marking its biggest yearly net loss ever.

United Renewable Energy was the result of a troublesome year for Taiwan’s solar manufacturing market. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with Asia’s largest independent power producer – Vena Energy – for the supply of modules for projects in Taiwan’s strong development sector.