Tue, Nov 24, 2020 page12

• T-REC green energy sales exceed 700 million kWh

  • By Angelica Oung / Staff reporter
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  More than 700 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green energy has been sold through the Taiwan Renewable Energy Certificate (T-REC) program, the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspections said yesterday.

  The “first batch” of deals, announced in May, was dominated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), while the “second batch,” announced yesterday, featured more diverse players including Taipei 101, L’Oreal Taiwan and the Winkler Partners law firm, the bureau said.

  In addition, the transaction volume also surpassed the bureau’s expectation, bureau division director Huang Chih-wen (黃志文) said.

  “We knew that a lot of deals were coming, but somehow we were still taken by surprise,” Huang said.

  Huang last month told the Taipei Times that the bureau predicted “more than 500 million kilowatt-hours” of green energy would be sold through the T-REC platform by the end of the year.

  With 113 million kWh of certificates sold through the first batch and 705 million kWh of certificates sold through the second batch, the bureau has surpassed the 500 million kWh prediction.

  An innovation on the part of the bureau was allowing companies without an account number with Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) to purchase the certificates, Huang said yesterday.

  “As far as Taipower is concerned, Taipei 101 is one entity. So when L’Oreal Taiwan [located within the building] wanted to buy T-RECs, we had to come up with a system to accommodate them. Now other companies in commercial buildings sharing a common Taipower account can use the same system,” Huang said.

  The other notable change is the inclusion of onshore wind in the T-REC system, Huang said, adding that the first batch was entirely solar photovoltaics.

  There are about 800 megawatts of onshore wind power capacity in Taiwan in total, he said.

  T-REC is recognized by international organizations such as RE-100, Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).

  “For a Taiwanese company, a good score by the CDP can determine whether or not it can participate in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index,” Huang said. “Moreover, being EPEAT-certified could help a company be included in the vendor list for big companies and even the US federal government.”

  For many green energy deals, banks are the biggest stakeholders that need to be persuaded, Huang said.

  “Banks are not investors, they are lenders. Above all, they care about stability, not the potential upside,” he said.

  An amendment last year to the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條例) that allows independent power producers to leave Taipower for corporate power purchase agreement deals with the option to return at any time at the same initial feed-in tariff (FIT) rate is key to convincing the banks to accept the risk, Huang said.

  “They can return to the embrace of the FIT at any time if things don’t work out,” Huang said.

  Even with the guarantee, banks “took a lot of convincing,” he said.

  The bureau expects much more diverse companies to join the T-REC program.

  "The big fish are in, there are a lot of smaller fish circling," Huang said.
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