Taiwan seeks to create friendly investment environment for geothermal developers
The Sihuangziping pilot geothermal power plant in Jinshan District, New Taipei City, Taiwan (source: New Taipei City Government)
Carlo Cariaga
24 Mar 2026
Through regulation, market incentives, and de-risking work, Taiwan aspires to create an investment environment that will empower the local geothermal sector.
The Government of Taiwan, through the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), continue with efforts to attract investment in the local geothermal sector through enabling policies, financial incentives, and de-risking of potential geothermal sites.
The agency had recently selected idle state-owned lands in Luye Township and Beinan Township, both in Taitung County, for investment promotion. These sites have an estimated installed capacity of 7 MW and an investment requirement of about NTD 1.7 billion (approx. USD 53 million). A briefing will be held soon by the agency to explain the selection mechanism for these sites.
The MOEA further announced that a geothermal power generation demonstration incentive program will be introduced, which will be providing subsidies of up to 50% of drilling costs, or a maximum incentive amount of NTD 100 million (approx. USD 3.1 million).
This has been the latest in a series of measures that the Ministry has made to create a positive investment environment to help the growth of the geothermal sector. In 2024, the Government implemented the new Geothermal Exploration and Development Permit and Management Regulation which provided the framework for permitting of geothermal exploration and development. An important part of this policy is the single-window review mechanism which simplified what was previously a complicated permitting process that required going through the Hot Spring Act and the Mining Act.
Earlier this year, the MOEA announced a set of new feed-in tariffs (FIT) for geothermal power, introducing a new tier for next-generation geothermal which will receive substantially higher rates. The threshold for “traditional” geothermal projects was also raised to 5 MW. According to the MOEA, this measure was done to facilitate the deployment of advanced deep geothermal technologies and incentivize large-scale geothermal development.
Taiwan currently has a total installed geothermal power generation capacity of 13.657 MW, with grid-connected projects in Yilan, Taitung, and Datun Mountain in New Taipei City. The largest project started operations only earlier this year – the 5.4 MW geothermal power plant in the Tuchang region in Yilan. Various exploration efforts are happening in parallel, including ongoing deep drilling in Dongshan in Yilan and collaborative work in the Datun Mountain led by Taipower.
Source: UDN.com and Taiwan-Post
