The Taipei-based British Trade and Cultural Office (BTCO) held an international seminar on offshore power and wind turbines yesterday, inviting British experts to share their experiences and seek further collaboration with their Taiwanese counterparts.
Led by Richard Brooks, head of Business Development for Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Renewable Deployment Team, a UK delegation comprised of 16 experts from nine companies and three universities delivered presentations at the seminar about the UK’s expertise in the offshore wind power sector.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the seminar, BTCO Director Michael Reilly said the seminar was very timely, because as the world faces a major economic slowdown and with the recent collapse in the oil price, some experts and politicians around the world have suggested that this is a time to move slowly toward developing a low-carbon future.
“Acting now will place us all in a better position when the world economy picks up speed once again. Investing now in renewable energy projects will help counter the impact of the slowdown,” Reilly said. “And, most of all, increasing the use of renewable energy now will improve energy security in the years ahead.”
Reilly said this year the UK led the world in installed offshore wind power, with eight operating offshore wind farms having a 589 megawatt capacity. Seven more are under construction.
Noting that Taiwan is also keen to diversify its energy needs and that the Taiwanese government has been promoting the importance of green energy over the past few years, Reilly said Taiwan and the UK have much in common and could work together in this area.
Taiwan has 185 wind turbines installed, with an accumulative capacity of 347 megawatts and is planning to install 200 more in the next five years.
The seminar, titled “International Offshore Wind Power and Wind Turbine Technology” was held by the BTCO in collaboration with the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Bureau of Energy.
It focused on offshore wind power technology, including the development and construction of an offshore wind farm, opportunities for wind turbines, offshore wind turbine concept design and whole-system modeling, design and manufacture of large wind turbine blades and technical issues affecting financing and how to overcome these issues.
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (better known as Foxconn) ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose 60 places to reach No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc. at 348th, Pegatron Corp. at 461st, CPC Corp., Taiwan at 494th and Wistron Corp. at 496th. According to Fortune, the world’s
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
NEW PRODUCTS: MediaTek plans to roll out new products this quarter, including a flagship mobile phone chip and a GB10 chip that it is codeveloping with Nvidia Corp MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday projected that revenue this quarter would dip by 7 to 13 percent to between NT$130.1 billion and NT$140 billion (US$4.38 billion and US$4.71 billion), compared with NT$150.37 billion last quarter, which it attributed to subdued front-loading demand and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The Hsinchu-based chip designer said that the forecast factored in the negative effects of an estimated 6 percent appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the greenback. “As some demand has been pulled into the first half of the year and resulted in a different quarterly pattern, we expect the third quarter revenue to decline sequentially,”
DIVERSIFYING: Taiwanese investors are reassessing their preference for US dollar assets and moving toward Europe amid a global shift away from the greenback Taiwanese investors are reassessing their long-held preference for US-dollar assets, shifting their bets to Europe in the latest move by global investors away from the greenback. Taiwanese funds holding European assets have seen an influx of investments recently, pushing their combined value to NT$13.7 billion (US$461 million) as of the end of last month, the highest since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Over the first half of this year, Taiwanese investors have also poured NT$14.1 billion into Europe-focused funds based overseas, bringing total assets up to NT$134.8 billion, according to data from the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association (SITCA),
RSS