The Cabinet will launch a “low-carbon community” project to promote its goal of reducing greenhouse emissions, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said yesterday.
The project involves the selection of an outlying island, which will be developed into a model of low-carbon living, with at least 50 percent of electricity on the island coming from renewable sources, Liu said.
The format will gradually be expanded to other communities, Liu said.
The premier said that through the government’s efforts to promote green energy, electricity consumption had dropped by 4.5 billion kilowatt hours over the past year, which is equivalent to the annual consumption of Tainan City and Tainan County combined.
Liu made the remarks while on a trip to Tainan to visit several businesses involved in green energy, including E-Ton Power Tech, the manufacturer of Taiwan’s first lithium-ion battery electric vehicle, and Delta Electronics, whose Tainan plant has been honored by the Architecture and Building Research Institute for its ecofriendly features.
Delta Group chairman Bruce Cheng (鄭崇華) said the plant, which has a natural ventilation system and uses natural sunlight as its primary lighting source, consumes 40 percent less electricity than a traditional building.
In addition, water consumption at the plant is 50 percent less than others of similar size because it is equipped with a large underground reservoir that can collect up to 4,110 tonnes of rain water, sufficient for three months supply, Cheng said.
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