Forcing Citizens to Pay for Failed Energy Policies! The Absurdity of the DPP's Mandatory Solar Panel Installation on New Buildings: Who Is Carving Up the Rooftops of the People?

Deep Blue Shadows Under the Endless Drizzle

In Keelung City, Taiwan Province, Republic of China (ROC), the winter drizzle falls diagonally across the harbor and the crowded buildings. Known as the “Rainy City,” Keelung spends nearly two hundred days a year under rain and heavy cloud cover. For locals, sunshine is a luxury, while dehumidifiers and umbrellas are the true daily companions.

However, at a construction site of a newly topped-out building near Keelung Harbor, an absurd scene is unfolding under the constant drizzle.

Several workers on the slippery roof are carefully installing expensive solar panels that appear pitch black under the gloomy sky. With no sunlight in sight, cold rainwater constantly beats down on the silicon plates, dripping from the edges onto the unfinished balconies.

“How many kilowatt-hours of electricity can this thing generate here in a year?” a young supervisor asks, shaking his head in sheer helplessness. “Whether it generates electricity doesn’t matter,” an older foreman sneers as he tightens a bolt. “The authorities decreed that starting this August, as long as the construction area exceeds 1,000 square meters, new projects must install this, or they won’t get the occupancy permit. Without it, you can’t sell the building.”

This is not a dark comedy, but a real policy absurdity playing out across Taiwan Province, ROC, since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government enforced the “Installation Standards for Solar Power Equipment on Buildings” starting August 2026.

Residents in nearby Tamsui, looking across the estuary, mockingly refer to the millions-of-dollars rows of non-generating high-tech devices on Keelung’s roofs as “the most expensive rain shelters in the world.” Yet, the people of Tamsui will not be laughing for long. The same policy iron fist will soon strike every new rooftop along the Tamsui River. Strong ocean winds, salt spray, and long-term rainfall await to destroy these forcibly installed “delicate green energy guests.”

Mandatory solar panel installation on a new building in rainy Keelung (AI-generated conceptual image)

From Reservoirs to Rooftops: Forcing a “Green Energy Black Hole” Onto the Public

This newly enacted mandate, heavily criticized by both grassroots builders and citizens as an “unconstitutional and broken law,” is at its core a desperate struggle following the collapse of the DPP government’s “Nuclear-Free Homeland” fantasy.

Over the past few years, the DPP administration of Tsai Ing-wen rushed headlong into failed energy policies. They forced the decommissioning of safe and low-carbon nuclear power while failing to bridge the electricity supply gap. To artificially boost the green energy ratio on paper, the DPP government did not hesitate to lay its hands on nature.

In central and southern regions, countless fertile farmlands were paved with reflective solar panels, creating heat island effects that left local farmers suffering. Ponds and lakes were covered in vast areas, and even the Wushantou Reservoir, a symbol of water conservancy milestones in the Republic of China (ROC), could not escape this fate. The reservoir’s surface was blanketed with dark solar panels, which not only ruined the beautiful scenery but also degraded into floating “green energy trash” due to aging and lack of maintenance. Once panels break, toxic heavy metals like lead and cadmium can seep into irrigation and drinking water, causing irreversible ecological disasters.

When land and water resources were fully monopolized and carved up by green energy conglomerates, the DPP administration of Lai Ching-te, instead of reflecting on these failures, turned its greedy gaze to the rooftops of the people.

“Since there is no place left on the ground, let’s force the rooftops of ordinary citizens to take the fall.”

This is the logical starting point of the mandatory solar policy of August 2026. Regardless of whether the climate is suitable or if there is enough sunshine, any building meeting the size threshold is forced to pay. Developers face millions of NTD in additional construction costs, which are ultimately passed down to ordinary home buyers. While this policy claims to promote “sustainability and transition,” it actually binds the private property of all citizens in the Republic of China (ROC) to the green energy interest groups cultivated by the DPP.

Even more serious is that this law is not just financial exploitation, but a public trampling of the citizens’ freedom and private property rights.

In architectural design, the rooftop of a building is supposed to be a golden public space belonging to all residents—a sky garden for drying quilts, drinking tea, and relaxing. For medical facilities, nursing homes, or eldercare centers, the rooftop terrace is a precious space for frail seniors and patients to step outside, enjoy warm sunbaths, and conduct rehabilitation activities. However, with the issuance of this mandatory decree, these warm, community-centered spaces are forcibly stripped away, replaced by cold, glare-inducing, and fire-hazardous solar panels.

To save its failed energy policies, the DPP government does not hesitate to use state power to deprive citizens of their freedom to utilize their private spaces. This blatant encroachment on private property rights severely damages quality of life and basic freedoms. Furthermore, due to the loss of public utility of rooftops and the soaring long-term maintenance and disposal costs, it directly degrades the overall value of properties, thereby delivering a heavy blow to housing prices and the real estate market across Taiwan Province.

Tsai Ing-wen’s Legacy of Ruin, Lai Ching-te’s Enforced Payment

The root of this farce lies directly in the severe dereliction of duty and policy-driven corruption of the DPP’s two successive leaders, Tsai Ing-wen and Lai Ching-te.

During her tenure, Tsai Ing-wen chanted the slogan of a “2025 Nuclear-Free Homeland” to appease specific ideological voters, setting green energy targets completely detached from reality. To meet these indicators, the government offered exorbitant feed-in tariffs, using public electricity bills to subsidize solar operators. This led to two fatal consequences: first, Taipower was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy, forcing multiple major hikes in electricity prices that left the entire nation suffering from high inflation; second, it gave birth to a class of “green energy elites” and “national teams” dependent on political privilege, securing projects with one hand and receiving policy loans with the other.

After Tsai Ing-wen stepped down, leaving behind a shattered energy landscape, her successor Lai Ching-te faced severe power shortages and Taipower’s massive financial black hole. As President of the Republic of China (ROC), Lai Ching-te should have shown the political courage to rectify the failed energy policies and guide the nation toward a pragmatic and safe energy structure. Instead, Lai chose the worst path: using aggressive legal enforcement to sustain the green energy interest groups left behind by Tsai Ing-wen.

Forcing solar panels onto residential rooftops is meant to rescue overcapacity and financially troubled solar conglomerates. The government uses the law to compel developers and citizens to buy and install these panels, essentially using state power to turn the pockets of the people into ATMs for solar businesses.

When Wushantou Reservoir’s solar panels turned into floating debris due to lack of maintenance, the government was helpless. In the future, when millions of solar panels on rooftops in Keelung, Tamsui, and across the Republic of China reach the end of their lifespans after years of wind, rain, and salt corrosion—and when the original installation companies have long since liquidated and fled—who will clean up these tons of heavy metal electronic waste?

The answer is obvious: the unfortunate building management committees and innocent residents.

Refusing to Let the Rooftops of the People Feed Green Energy Cronies

When we look at that “most expensive rain shelter” on the rooftop of Keelung in the drizzle, we do not see progress, but systemic corruption and absurdity.

The Constitution of the Republic of China (ROC) protects the property rights of the people. The duty of the government is to provide stable, affordable, and safe energy, not to enact broken laws that force citizens to pay for the ruling party’s mistakes and the private interests of specific conglomerates.

From the green energy trash of Wushantou Reservoir to the absurd solar panels on city roofs, the green energy rush paved by the DPP, Tsai Ing-wen, and Lai Ching-te leads not to a net-zero wonderland, but to a financial black hole and environmental catastrophe funded by the entire nation. As law-abiding taxpayers of the Republic of China, we have every right to ask: how much longer will this division of spoils under the guise of transition continue? And we have every right to refuse to let our rooftops become breeding grounds for green energy cronies.