With only the “final details” remaining, a law to require the nation’s biggest electricity users to boost their use of sources of renewable energy is to take effect from next year, Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) told lawmakers at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on Thursday.
Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Tsai Pi-ru (蔡壁如) asked Wang to list the “large users” that would be affected, but Wang declined to provide names, saying that discussions are ongoing.
“It is more important to get these companies on board than it is to publish the list of large users right now,” Wang said. “We know who they are.”
The Regulations Governing the Chartered Capacity on Electricity Consumption Agreements Which the Users Shall Install Renewable Energy Facilities for Exceeding a Certain Capacity (一定契約容量以上之電力用戶應設置再生能源發電設備管理辦法), also known as the “major electricity users’ regulations” (用電大戶條款), targets companies, including those in the semiconductor, steel, petrochemical and electronics sectors.
About 500 users would be affected by the rules.
The regulations follow an amendment last year to the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條例), under which firms that reach a threshold of electricity use must increase their use of energy from renewable sources to 10 percent.
Companies can fulfill this requirement by building their own renewable generation facilities, purchasing certificates, installing batteries or paying a fee.
“We are working on finalizing the details so that we can smoothly enact the regulation on Jan. 1 and get businesses to reach their 10 percent renewable energy target within five years,” Wang said.
The regulations were to take effect in November last year, but were delayed due to an industry backlash and later the COVID-19 pandemic.
Environmentalists have criticized the ministry for raising the contract capacity threshold for major electricity users from 800 kilowatts to 5,000 kilowatts, meaning the act would affect far fewer firms.
Nate Maynard, senior consultant at Reset Carbon, a sustainability consulting firm that focuses on supply chains, said that the progressive watering-down of the regulations is “a missed opportunity.”
“Taiwan is not helping its industries in the long run by weakening RE requirements,” Maynard said by telephone. “In fact, it is setting Taiwanese companies up for failure, as more markets set carbon targets.”
A broader requirement might have pushed more companies into adopting green energy and help lower renewable energy prices in Taiwan, Maynard said.
“So now the companies being affected are the same few big names that are already adopting” renewable energy, he said. “You are not causing a wider adoption of renewables.”
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”