Government to set feed-in tariff
Taiwan will set next year’s feed-in tariff for power generated by renewable energy sources in September, the government’s energy bureau said.
A panel will determine the prices based on criteria including progress in technology, changes in costs and retail electricity costs, Wang Yunn-ming (王運銘), deputy director-general of the Bureau of Energy, told reporters in Taipei yesterday.
“Reasonable returns will be guaranteed,” Wang said.
The government in December last year set minimum wholesale prices for electricity generated by solar panels and wind turbines at levels higher than those for power from fossil fuels to spur production of renewable energy.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has pledged to cut emissions to 2000 levels by 2025.
The government has received 276 applications, or a total capacity of 242 megawatts, for the preferred tariffs, the bureau said in a statement yesterday. One megawatt can supply about 800 US homes.
Feed-in tariffs, or the wholesale prices state-run utility Taiwan Power Co(台電) pays generators, are at least NT$11.12 (US$0.34) per kilowatt-hour for photovoltaic solar panels and NT$2.38 for wind farms, the bureau said in a statement on its Web site in December.
The rates compared with an average cost of NT$2.06 per kilowatt-hour from fossil fuels.
ProMOS obtains rollover
Local computer memory chipmaker ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技) yesterday said it has obtained rollover from eight credit banks for the syndicated loan of NT$2.98 billion, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The credit banks led by Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行) agreed to give a one-year grace period for money-losing ProMOS to pay back the principal.
The NT$2.98 billion loan was due on April 27.
Nan Ya surges to two year high
Nan Ya Printed Circuit Board Corp (南亞電路板) share prices surged to their highest level in more than two years of Taipei trading after Macquarie Group Ltd said in a note yesterday that the company would post the strongest revenue growth among printed circuit board companies in the third quarter.
The stock jumped 6.6 percent to NT$153.50 as of 1:09pm, set for the highest close since June 11, 2008, before closing at NT$152 per share.
Chinatrust investment approved
Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金) said in an exchange filing yesterday that the board of its banking unit approved plans to invest 800 million yuan (US$118 million) to set up a Shanghai branch.
The proposal needs approval from regulators in Taiwan and China, the statement said.
Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中信銀) revoked its earlier application to invest 3.2 billion yuan to form a subsidiary in Shanghai, the statement said.
Clean energy value soars
Taiwan’s production value of green and clean energy, including solar power, will top NT$1 trillion in five years, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said on Sunday.
The production value of the local green energy sector will increase from NT$160 billion last year to NT$1.15 trillion by 2015, Shih said in a speech at the inauguration of a solar power plant at Kenmec Mechanical Engineering Co (廣運機械工程) in Tainan County.
Kenmec’s solar power plant, with an installation capacity of 1.138 megawatts, became operational on Sunday, making it the largest privately run solar power plant in Taiwan.
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