Taiwan can improve the energy efficiency of its new and existing buildings by achieving a potential 30 percent reduction in both energy use and carbon emissions using technologies that are already available, the European Chamber of Commerce in Taipei (ECCT) said yesterday.
“Taiwan should catch up with the world in energy conservation by raising and instating legally binding standards to improve energy efficiency,” Andreas Gursch, chairman of the ECCT’s Energy and Environment Committee, told a media briefing to release a report titled Energy-Saving Measures for Taiwan’s Built Environment.
What Taiwan needs is willingness on the part of the government, entrepreneurs and the general public to work together, especially when the nation’s building insulation standards are two times less strict than those in Europe, Gursch said.
The report draws on the results of a computer simulation conducted by the ECCT and National Taipei University of Technology (NTUT), as well as best practices and cutting-edge technologies from Europe, to improve the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings in Taiwan.
The results of the simulation with real climate data and typical user patterns in Taiwan showed a potential 30 percent reduction in both energy use and carbon emissions in office buildings and residential high rises, which is equivalent to NT$60 billion (US$1.8 million) in dollar terms, or reductions of 12 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
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