The Ministry of Economic Affairs said it would begin a resource development plan to harness geothermal energy from the Tatun Volcano Group (大屯火山群) by building a station in New Taipei City’s Jinshan District (金山).
The ministry said the station could generate up to 68.5 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per year.
As part of the project’s commencement on Tuesday, test wells were drilled as part of a demonstration of what the project plans to do, Bureau of Energy Director-General Lin Chuan-neng (林全能) said.
Geothermal heat pumps are a clean, efficient power source that are immune to weather and other seasonal effects, and can be used to provide a constant stream of energy as a base load power plant.
Geothermal power would allow the nation to have a fully indigenous source of energy, Lin said when asked about the benefits of pursuing geothermal energy.
After two years of surveillance and analysis of geothermal data, experts decided that the mountainous Jinshan District would provide the greatest amount of thermal power generation.
Using conventional drilling measures, the wells in the volcanic zone would be able to emit up of 293oC of usable heat.
Based on preliminary assessments by the bureau, an annual generation of 68.5 million kWh of electricity would be equivalent to one year’s energy consumption in New Taipei City’s Jinshan and Wanli (萬里) districts.
The bureau added that the project would also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 42,677 tonnes annually.
The ministry estimated that the project would be completed by the end of this year.
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