Chiayi City Government is promoting a plan for 10,000 buildings to have solar panels installed on their roofs. By the end of this year, it will have finished installing solar power generation systems on a total of 38 halls and dormitories belonging to 27 government departments and schools, and it estimates that these systems will generate 3.55 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity each year. On Dec. 17, Jhih Hang Elementary School announced the preliminary results achieved by implementing this project at the school. From September to November, the school’s solar panels generated about 52,000 kWh, for which it will be able to get an estimated rebate of NT$50,000.
Mayor Twu Shiing-jer says that Chiayi County, including Chiayi City, enjoys plenty of sunshine, making it suitable for developing solar power. Twu says the city is promoting environment-friendly energy resources, starting with government departments and schools, which can receive about 20.5 percent of the total revenue from selling the electricity they generate, and the solar projects can also be a teaching material for students.
Huang Kuo-tung, general manager of solar power company Anji Technology Co, says that Chiayi City gets an average of 5.7 hours of sunshine per day, which is quite good for generating electricity. The average rate for electricity sold to the Taiwan Power Co is NT$5 per kWh, out of which a rebate is paid to government departments and schools according to the ratio stipulated in the contract. It is tentatively estimated that the project will add NT$77 million to the city government’s revenues over 20 years.
Photo: Wang Shan-yen, Liberty Times
照片:自由時報記者王善嬿
Jhih Hang school principal Wu Chiu-feng says that the school has since 2006 been one of the model schools designated by the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Bureau of Energy, and students from first to sixth grades all have lessons on the topic. In recent years, the school’s annual electricity bill has been around NT$350,000. Now it expects to make around NT$350,000 a year in rebates from selling electricity from its solar power equipment, so it hopes to cover the whole of its power bill.
(Liberty Times, translated by Julian Clegg)
嘉義市政府推動「陽光屋頂萬戶計畫」,年底前在二十七個機關、學校,共三十八棟廳、校舍的頂樓,建置完成太陽能光電發電系統,預計每年產電三百五十五萬度。十二月十七日在志航國小發表初步成果,九到十一月已發電約五‧二萬度,估計已可獲五萬元回饋金。
市長涂醒哲說,嘉市是陽光充足的縣市,適合發展太陽能發電,自公家機關、學校做起,推廣環保能源,可獲約百分之二十‧五的售電所得,並成為學生學習教材。
太陽能廠商安集科技總經理黃國棟表示,嘉市平均日照長度五‧七個小時,發電效能不錯,賣電給台電公司的價錢,平均每度五元,再依簽約比例回饋給機關、學校,初估二十年可替市府增加七千七百萬元收益。
志航國小校長吳秋鋒表示,該校自二零零六年起,就是經濟部能源局的示範學校,一到六年級都有相關課程,近年學校一年電費支出約三十五萬元,現有太陽能發電售電每年三十五萬元回饋金,可望充裕學校經費運用。
(自由時報記者王善嬿)
Huge stretches of coral reef around the world are turning a ghostly white this year amid record warm ocean temperatures. On April 15, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed the world’s fourth mass global bleaching event is underway — with serious consequences for marine life and for the people and economies that rely on reefs. WHAT ARE CORALS? Corals are invertebrates that live in colonies. Their calcium carbonate secretions form hard and protective scaffolding that serves as a home to many colorful species of single-celled algae. The two organisms have evolved over millennia to work together, with corals providing shelter to algae,
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