If Taiwan could overhaul its luminaires with energy-saving LED devices, the nation would be able to save about 10 billion kilowatts per hour (kWh) of electricity a year, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) forecast on Friday.
A reduction of 10 billion kWh in power consumption is equivalent to 24 percent of the 41.6 billion kWh of electricity generated by the country’s three operational nuclear power plants last year, the market researcher said.
“Pragmatically, it is impossible for all the lighting fixtures in Taiwan to be retrofitted with LEDs right now,” Roger Chu (儲余超), an analyst at TrendForce’s LED market research division, said in the report. “However, solely by increasing the proportion of LED lighting used in the nation, Taiwan could diminish its reliance on nuclear energy.”
Chu’s remarks come amid a national debate over nuclear energy, as both pro and anti-nuclear activists are seeking a referendum to decide the fate of the controversial Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City.
On Sunday, the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government agreed to halt the construction of the nearly completed nuclear power plant.
The energy consumption of Taiwan’s lighting sector reached about 22 billion kWh last year, according to TrendForce.
Reproducing total consumption by approximately 11.9 billion kWh, or 45 percent, is achievable if the domestic, commercial, industrial and residential lighting sectors all convert from traditional incandescent bulbs, halogen lamps, high pressure sodium lights and metal halides, to LEDs, the market researcher added.
TrendForce predicted that global LED bulb demand would increase 86 percent annually this year, while demand for LED lighting tubes may rise by 89 percent over the same period.
The global LED lighting market is forecast to see a compound annual growth rate of 39 percent from last year to 2016, as the outdoor, commercial and residential start to blossom, Macquarie Securities said in a report on April 16.
Chu said that if Taiwan applies more LED luminaires in its residential, industrial, commercial and public lighting, the benefits could create a healthier energy structure.
Currently, nuclear power plays a basic supply role in the national energy structure, accounting for about 18 percent of total power supplies, while solar energy is confined to a supporting role because of technical and environmental limitations.
While it is still difficult for photovoltaics energy to replace atomic power, and there is no quick answer to the nuclear power question, Taiwan should encourage investments in “green” energy and pay more attention to biofuels, geothermal energy and other renewable sources of power, Chu said.
"Taiwan should seek to develop LED lighting subsidies and industry promotional projects," with the aim of raising its LED lighting penetration rate to from 22 to 50 percent over the short term, he said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the