Taiwan’s green energy industry is poised to boom after a statute aimed at promoting renewable energy development cleared the legislative floor last week, a Ministry of Economic Affairs official said yesterday.
Yeh Hui-ching (葉惠青), director of the ministry’s Bureau of Energy, said passage of the Act Governing Development of Renewable Energy (再生能源發展條例) has formally ushered Taiwan into an era of alternative energy development and related applications.
“It means that the development and application of renewable, low-pollution sources of energy that produce low amounts of carbon-dioxide emissions will be given priority in terms of low-carbon energy development in the country,” Yeh said during a ceremony marking the establishment of the Taipei-based Chinese Alternative Energy Association (中華替代能源協會).
The passage of the Act represents the beginning of a partnership between the energy sector and environmental conservation, he said.
The Act provides a legal framework that will encourage investment in renewable energy production and offer incentives to local consumers to install equipment based on renewable energy. The government will provide incentives such as purchase subsidies and low-interest loans to increase the country’s renewable energy generation capacity to between 6.5 million kilowatts and 10 million kilowatts.
Yeh said it was hoped that these and other incentives would boost the development of the local solar, wind, biomass and other green sectors.
In line with the spirit of the Act, he said, the Executive Yuan has also required that 10 percent of the funding for public construction projects under the government’s public works stimulus package be set aside for the development of renewable energy or energy-saving efforts.
“These plans will in turn form the foundation of green business in the country,” he added.
In addition to permitting the state-run Taiwan Power Co (台電) to buy electricity generated by private renewable energy investors, the Act allows the government to offer other incentives to speed up the development of renewable energy technologies making use of solar photovoltaic energy, solar thermal energy, wind power and biomass energy.
Of these sectors, the solar energy sector will hopefully become the country’s next NT$1 trillion (US$30 billion) industrial sector and result in Taiwan becoming a leading manufacturer of solar photovoltaic energy equipment, said National Taiwan University president Lee Si-chen (李嗣涔), who is the convener of a national energy development project authorized by the National Science Council.
“The government’s target is quite clear that the installation capacity of renewable energy should account for 15 percent of the country’s total power installation capacity by 2025, with its power generation capacity projected to increase to 8 percent of the total power supply in Taiwan,” Lee said.
Meanwhile, Tsai Chin-yao (蔡進耀), chairman of the Solar Photovoltaic Energy Development Committee under the non-profit organization Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International Taiwan, forecast that the statute would spark investment of NT$30 billion in Taiwan’s renewable energy sector within one year.
The investment could create up to 10,000 jobs and generate NT$100 billion in revenues in one to two years, he said.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
POWERING UP: PSUs for AI servers made up about 50% of Delta’s total server PSU revenue during the first three quarters of last year, the company said Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) reported record-high revenue of NT$161.61 billion (US$5.11 billion) for last quarter and said it remains positive about this quarter. Last quarter’s figure was up 7.6 percent from the previous quarter and 41.51 percent higher than a year earlier, and largely in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$160 billion. Delta’s annual revenue last year rose 31.76 percent year-on-year to NT$554.89 billion, also a record high for the company. Its strong performance reflected continued demand for high-performance power solutions and advanced liquid-cooling products used in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers,
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
RSS