Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) monopoly on electricity production must be ended if the nation is to develop green energy production, representatives of the Renewable Energy Coalition (再生能源聯盟) said yesterday.
The remarks were made at a press conference at which commentators criticized what was described as lack of government action on pushing renewable energy sources.
At the conference, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator (DPP) Tien Chiu-ching (田秋堇) said that despite several reports and pieces of legislation, substantive promotion of renewable energy has yet to be implemented.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
“Taiwan has already held numerous energy conferences — from 1998 to 2005 to 2009 — but their consensus for the proactive promotion of renewable energy development remains largely unimplemented” National Taipei University economics professor Wang Tu-fa (王塗發) said.
Wang criticized the government’s policy of setting quotas for renewable energy production as inefficient and insufficient.
According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Bureau of Energy, this year’s quota for renewable energy production is 270 megawatts (MW), equal to 1.1 percent of total national energy consumption.
Production of renewable energy is hampered by the system for selling electricity, which prevents the direct purchase of energy produced with renewable sources, Taiwan NGO Social Enterprise Co Ltd general manager Kao Ru-ping (高茹萍) said.
For example, even though Google Inc has committed to obtaining all of its energy from renewable sources, its data centers in Taiwan only use 4.8 percent, due to regulations granting Taipower a monopoly over the electricity market, she said.
While the law allows firms to produce their own green energy on-site, this is not feasible on a large scale for most companies due to the space required, Wang said.
Any electricity produced off-site cannot be bought directly, even if it is produced by the company itself, he said. Instead, any electricity that enters the national grid must be sold to Taipower, which possesses a monopoly on all electricity sales, he said.
Because companies cannot choose the source of the electricity Taipower provides, the monopoly denies firms the option of purchasing green energy, he said.
He said that the government must open up the electricity market to allow direct sales between green energy producers and consumers.
Combined with green energy markets and a system of taxes and subsidies reflecting the externalities of different fuel sources, this measure could easily increase renewable energy’s proportion of electricity production to between 5 and 6 percent, he said.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard