National Sun Yat-sen University professor Chen Yang-yi’s (陳陽益) dream of using the Kuroshio Current to generate electricity has been proved viable after seven years of testing, and Chen hopes that by 2020 the project would be able to produce 1 gigawatt (GW) of electricity per day.
Chen’s research team said that it reported the results to Premier Lin Chuan (林全) on Saturday.
According to Chen, the Kuroshio Power Plant Development Project late last month successfully deployed a floating platform anchored to a sunken ship, the first such platform in Taiwan and the first system to test the viability of power generation by ocean currents.
The project was the first to turn on low-speed generators submerged in water currents flowing at 0.45m per second, Chen said, adding that the generators were kept running for 60 hours.
The team first used tugboats off Pingtung County’s Siaoliouciou Island (小琉球) last year to tow their third generator through ocean currents at a speed of 1.43m per second, Chen said, adding that average power generation was 32.57 kilowatts (kW).
That was the first time a research team towed a generator to simulate ocean current speeds and generated power, Chen said.
On July 23, the team deployed a multipurpose platform 25km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), which it anchored to a foundation 900m deep converted from an abandoned ship, Chen said.
From July 25 to July 29, the team ran consecutive tests as the Kuroshio Current flowed past the platform at a depth of 30m, with currents traveling at 1.27m per second, generating an average of 26.31kW, he said.
“It was a successful trial,” Chen said.
The team plans to move to Jioupeng Bay (九鵬灣) in Pingtung next year for a trial run, which it hopes will generate 2 megawatts for commercial operations, Chen said
If the test results are positive, the system could become a replacement for the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant, as it is projected to be able to generate 1GW by 2020, which would move the nation one step closer to the government’s goal of a “nuclear-power-free homeland.”
While many nations have been attempting to use sea currents to generate power, most are still at the design stage and none have had a successful trial, he said.
According to Chen, Japan last year demonstrated a sea current generation system, but said that it would not conduct live trials until 2020, meaning that Taiwan’s research has surpassed that of other nations.
Chen, who served as president of the university’s College of Marine Science, launched the Kuroshio Current power generation research project in 2009 in collaboration with research teams from the National Applied Research Laboratories and National Cheng Kung University’s Tainan Hydraulics Laboratory.
The team also collaborates with Wanchi Steel Industrial Co (萬機鋼鐵) on technological matters.
‘NO SECURITY RISK’: The Railway Bureau reassured the public that the technicians’ activities were limited to technical guidance and did not involve sensitive systems The Railway Bureau yesterday said it had invited eight Chinese technicians to assist with an airport MRT construction project. The bureau issued the confirmation after an Internet user said Chinese nationals had entered the construction zone of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s Terminal 3 project. They asked why “individuals from an enemy state” were allowed access to such a major national infrastructure project, which raised serious concerns over Taiwan’s industrial safety, sensitive systems and information security. The bureau’s Northern Region Engineering Branch Office said subcontractor Taiwan Handle Industrial Co (台灣手把工業) of the Taoyuan airport MRT’s “Contract No. CU05 Project A14 Station Civil, MEP &
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
RSS