Pledges by institutions and individuals to purchase “green” power from state-owned Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) have far exceeded a goal set by the government for this year after several business heavyweights announced their participation in the program, the Bureau of Energy said yesterday.
According to data compiled by the bureau, enterprises and individuals in Taiwan had pledged to buy 16.53 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of green power as of Monday after the bureau launched the purchase program on Feb. 16, aiming to raise consumption of energy from renewable sources and cut carbon dioxide emissions.
The purchase program has a goal to sell 10 million kWh of green power this year.
Taipower generates green power with facilities such as solar panels and windmills and has about 784 million kWh available.
The data showed that 774 enterprises and 883 individuals had participated in the green power purchase program as of Monday.
After the data was released, several companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and I-Mei Foods Co pledged to buy large amounts of green power from the program.
On Tuesday, TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker, announced that it would purchase 100 million kWh of green power, accounting for almost 13 percent of what Taipower’s has available.
TSMC said that the purchase is expected to reduce its carbon footprint by 52 million kilograms, equivalent to the carbon absorbed by 5.2 million trees in one year.
On Thursday, I-Mei Foods pledged to buy 2.5 million kWh of green power.
Bureau spokeswoman Jennifer Wu (吳玉珍) said that enterprises’ pledges in the program would no doubt improve the nation’s efforts to boost environmental protection and fulfill social responsibility.
Last year, enterprises and individuals purchased 4.34 million kWh of green power from Taipower.
The top three buyers last year were IC packaging and testing services provider Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc, Fubon Financial Holding Co and petrochemical firm Swancor Industry Co, with those three accounting for almost 90 percent of the power purchased.
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