More than 500 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) are likely to be sold through a Taiwan Renewable Energy Certification Center program through the end of this year, driven by intense corporate demand for green energy, the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspections (BSMI) said yesterday.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ bureau administers the Taiwan Renewable Energy Certificate (T-REC) program.
Each certificate represents 1,000kWh of electricity from renewable sources.
The first deals were announced in May, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) being the biggest buyer, the bureau said in a news release.
Speaking to the Taipei Times by telephone, BSMI division director Huang Chih-wen (黃志文) said that pent-up corporate demand for green energy explains the program’s quick adoption.
“A lot of the deals were in the works long before we opened the T-REC platform,” Huang said. “As soon as they saw that the first batch of transactions went smoothly, everybody jumped in.”
While the first batch involved mostly solar power, most of the upcoming deals will be from onshore wind projects, Huang said.
“We anticipate reaching 500 million kilowatt hours by the end of the year,” Huang said, adding that the exact schedule is uncertain because parties take their time before signing deals, which run for up to 20 years.
TSMC in May bought 38,259 certificates of the 38,318 available, the center’s Web site showed.
TSMC in July signed the Climate Group’s global RE100 pledge, promising to be “committed to 100 percent renewable electricity” by 2050.
Also in July, the firm inked the world’s largest corporate power purchase agreement with Danish energy giant Orsted A/S, buying all of the energy generated from Orsted’s 920 megawatt wind farm off Changhua County for its 20 year lifespan.
The bureau’s role includes working with Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) to track green electricity generators connected to the Taipower grid and electricity from the grid that goes to a green energy buyer.
Taipower charges NT$0.058 per kilowatt hour to “wheel” energy from renewable sources through its grid from supplier to producer.
An amendment last year to the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條例) provided the legislative structure for T-REC, Huang said.
“The independent power producers are protected,” Huang said. “They can leave Taipower to sell their electricity to corporate offtakers at a higher price, but they have the option to return to Taipower at any time at the same rate that they were getting before they left.”
Merida Industry Co (美利達) has seen signs of recovery in the US and European markets this year, as customers are gradually depleting their inventories, the bicycle maker told shareholders yesterday. Given robust growth in new orders at its Taiwanese factory, coupled with its subsidiaries’ improving performance, Merida said it remains confident about the bicycle market’s prospects and expects steady growth in its core business this year. CAUTION ON CHINA However, the company must handle the Chinese market with great caution, as sales of road bikes there have declined significantly, affecting its revenue and profitability, Merida said in a statement, adding that it would
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
RISING: Strong exports, and life insurance companies’ efforts to manage currency risks indicates the NT dollar would eventually pass the 29 level, an expert said The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rallied to its strongest in three years amid inflows to the nation’s stock market and broad-based weakness in the US dollar. Exporter sales of the US currency and a repatriation of funds from local asset managers also played a role, said two traders, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly. State-owned banks were seen buying the greenback yesterday, but only at a moderate scale, the traders said. The local currency gained 0.77 percent, outperforming almost all of its Asian peers, to close at NT$29.165 per US dollar in Taipei trading yesterday. The
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
RSS