Wind power about to blow into local generating sector

Foreign and domestic companies are vying to position themselves to establish working wind-powered electric plants along the west coast of the main island where conditions suitable for generating the bulk of the 500 megawatts of power slated to be wind-generated by 2010.

Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is working on a plan to build 40 wind-turbine generators in Taichung Harbor with a goal of being able to feed wind-generated electricity into the national grid by 2005, executives said.

Also working to fine-tune their plan is Germany-based InfraVest GmbH, whose executives yesterday met with officials to discuss the latest progress on its previously stalled plan to build over 130 turbines at various locations in Taiwan.

Su Sheng-hsiung (余勝雄), director of Taipower's power development department, told the Taipei Times that the plan, which is still only in the initial stages, would require around NT$3.5 billion to complete.

"Once we get official approval, we hope to begin construction by early next year," Su said.

The 40 turbines, which will cover a total area of around 100 hectares, will be able to generate around 72MW of power annually based on projections that the turbines will operate for 3,000 hours at full load for 35 percent of the year, Su said.

The wind-turbine plan was pushed to the fore by the govenrment during the debacle in 2000-2001 over the fate of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (核四), he said.

The government wants 500MW of power to be generated by wind turbines by 2010.

While acknowledging the contribution the environmentally friendly wind generators can make, Su said that they will only be capable of serving as a supplementary source of electricity.

"Wind power anywhere in the world can only generate supplemental power, especially here in Taiwan where the windy season is in winter but peak electricity demand is in summer," Su said. "We still need conventional plants to meet peak summer loads."

Taipower, which has experimental wind turbines on Penghu and in the industrial park at Mailiao in Yunlin County, has yet to settle on a supplier for the turbine technology.

Companies from Germany and Denmark are interested in the project, Su said.

Tsai Yan-shan (蔡晏珊), Taiwan representative for InfraVest GmbH, said that it revised its original plan after the government last year asked it to provide more proof that it could attain approval from county authorities to build its turbines.

"We have since received approval from Miaoli County authorities to erect over 100 turbines there. Now we only need approval from the Ministry of Economic Affairs to move foreward on the project," Tsai said.

One of the problems Infravest envisions is competition from Taipower. It also needs to negotiate with the state-run giant to obtain the rights to get connected to the nation's grid, Tsai said. "If the talks with Taipower go smoothly and the ministry approves our project, we hope to start construction by the end of next year" he said.