State-owned Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) yesterday said it plans to invest more than NT$400 billion (US$11.89 billion) in the development of renewable energy sources over the next 15 years, with the aim of expanding the nation’s total installed offshore wind power capacity to 180 megawatts (MW) and total installed solar power capacity to 100MW by 2030.
The company also aims to bring land-based wind energy capacity and thermal power capacity up to a total of 70MW by that time.
Over the past 15 years, Taipower has completed six wind power projects, involving the installation of 169 wind turbines.
The company has completed the first phase of a solar energy development project, which includes 16 energy generation facilities with a total capacity of 1.82MW.
Cumulative installed wind power and solar power capacity is about 30MW, the company said.
Work on an offshore wind power development project in Changhua County’s Fangyuan Township (芳苑) is scheduled to start in 2018, which is expected to attract investment of more than NT$45 billion in related fields.
The company also plans to harness energy from geothermal sources in volcanic areas of Taitung and Yangmingshan in Taipei over the next four years.
It has also concluded feasibility studies on several hydropower projects using water resources from the Liyutan Reservoir (鯉魚潭水庫) in Miaoli County, the Hushan Reservoir (湖山水庫) in Yunlin County and the Jiji Weir (集集攔河堰) in Nantou County.
Work on the Liyutan project is scheduled to start in 2017 and the hydropower plant there is set to start commercial operations in 2020, Taipower said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
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