Taiwan Power Co., the government controlled energy supplier for Taiwan announced today that the plan on spending NT$3.57 Billion (about 180 million US dollars) installing solar panels to offset its use of crude oil. They plan on adding 31 MW of new solar energy by 2011, their current capacity for solar is 140 Kw.

Currently Taiwan imports about 98% of its energy from off island, they want to provide 12% by renewables by 2025. With the goal of reducing to 2% the amount of oil used by that same date.  Its not a huge goal, but it does mean that they will be almost completely free of imported oil, something that may turn out to be a big bonus during future country planning.  Already renowned as a major manufacturer of cheap stuff, Taiwan may be able leverage renewable energy supplies to help keep future prices low.