Taichung is to invest NT$60 million (US$1.95 million) over the next two years to replace heavy-oil boilers at school kitchens with natural-gas boilers, Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau Director Bai Zhi-rong (白智榮) said on Thursday.
Bai made the remarks at a city council question-and-answer session, after Democratic Progressive Party Taichung City Councilor Tseng Chao-jung (曾朝榮) asked about the city’s clean-air plans.
The city’s emission standards for industrial boilers it imposed last year were vaunted as the nation’s toughest, so the local government should set an example by ensuring that its own boilers meet the standards, Tseng said.
Bai said that the city government has a plan to replace boilers in public schools with ones that use natural gas, which would lessen their carbon footprint and release less fine airborne particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5).
The city government and the Ministry of Education are to make NT$30,000 available to each public school in the city to buy new boilers and kitchen ventilation systems, he said.
The city between 2014 and last year reduced PM2.5 emissions from 27 micrograms per cubic meter to 20.2 micrograms per cubic meter, better than the national average of 20.5 micrograms per cubic meter, he said.
Taichung is offering subsidies to establishments across the city to phase out boilers that use heavy oil, he said.
Since September 2015, 46 out of the 117 factories that utilize industrial boilers that weigh more than 2 tonnes have replaced their heavy-oil boilers, in addition to 110 out of the 153 factories that use smaller boilers, he said.
About 300 of the city’s 900 total boilers use natural gas, Bai added.
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