Experts urge government to promote conservation

In the wake of the government's decision to scrap the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, both energy experts and environmental officials have called on the government to consider the option of demand-side management (DSM) -- which focuses on energy conservation and improving energy efficency -- to help promote sustainable development in Taiwan.

As the government prepares to present its alternative solutions to the nuclear plant in December their solutions -- like those of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) -- have largely focused on increasing the capacity of supply, while disregarding the possibility of controlling demand.

"Have people ever thought about how many power plants Taiwan can accommodate if we follow the present development path?" Lin Tze-luen, Taiwanese research associate at the US-based Center for Energy and Environmental Policy at University of Delaware, told the Taipei Times.

Environmental Protection Administrator Lin Jun-yi (林俊義) has said that the government should have made more efforts to promote both energy efficiency and energy conservation.

Demand-side management needed

One of the main solutions the MOEA is looking at is independent power plants or IPPs. According to Taiwan Power Company (Taipower, 台電), eleven IPPs, with a total installed capacity of 10,300MW, built by private companies have been approved by the MOEA.

Four are currently being operated by private companies. Other large-scale natural gas IPPs are also going to be proposed.

"The MOEA should focus on how to decrease the demand side, which would be more cost-effective both in the near and longer terms," Taiwanese research associate Lin said.

Lin suggests that the government should not overlook points raised by international energy experts who have visited Taiwan in droves over the past few months.

Lin said that while there were still many people in Taiwan saying that renewable energy was for the future, that argument was wrong. Energy experts in the international community have urged countries to rely on renewable energy and to adopt decentralized power generation plants -- smaller plants made for communities, factories or hospitals.

"Renewable energy alone cannot solve our energy problem, energy efficiency is a key too," Lin said.

Energy conservation

Although the KMT government has promoted a policy of energy conservation and energy efficiency in the past, economic analysts say that the effects of the approach were limited because goals were unclear and efforts focused mostly on research and less on development.

Based on the conclusions of the National Energy Conference in 1998, the government arranged about NT$10 billion for a five-year research and development project to promote energy conservation and clean energy.

In the industrial sector, the government promoted energy standards, expanded financial incentives and strengthened energy conservation technical services.

In a recently released research paper, Wang To-far (王塗發), an economist at National Taipei University, suggested that an adjustment to the the industrial structure in Taiwan as another possible solution.

Wang pointed out that four manufacturing sectors, including chemical engineering, steel-making, the cement industry, and papermaking consume one-third of the nation's energy and electricity but only created 7 percent of Taiwan's gross national product (GNP) in the past 17 years.