The Cingshuei Geothermal Power Plant, the first privately built geothermal plant in Taiwan, is set to obtain a commercial license by the end of this month.
The 4.2 megawatt (MW) plant in Yilan County would generate enough electricity to power 10,000 households and has potential for expansion to further utilize the area’s geothermal resources.
Yilan has long been recognized as having the greatest potential for geothermal energy generation in Taiwan, with hot springs in the area bubbling so hot that tourists boil eggs in them.
Photo courtesy of Yilan County Government via CNA
State-run Taiwan Power Co (台電) has since the 1980s sponsored a 3MW plant in Cingshuei, but the project ran into trouble due to corrosion and silt blockage, and was eventually abandoned.
The current project, developed by Fabulous Power Co (結元能源開發), imported equipment from Nevada-based Ormat Technologies Inc.
The plant extracts water with temperatures of up to 180°C from 1,200m to 2,100m underground and runs it through a heat exchanger to generate electricity, before pumping it back into the ground again.
“The plant takes the heat, but not the water,” the Yilan County Government said in a press release.
Fabulous Power won the right to use the land occupied by the failed pilot plant in 2017, the county government said.
Fabulous Power president Lin Bo-hsiu (林伯修) last month told the Chinese-language Business Today magazine that he never gave up hope.
“People told me the energy just wasn’t there, but for eight years I went from well to well, and I studied different methods and different equipment,” Lin said.
Lin said that the 4.2MW generation capacity is just the beginning.
He estimated there was 30MW to 60MW of power generation potential in the Chingshuei area alone.
Reliable geothermal energy could be a perfect complement to other alternative energy sources such as solar and wind, which generate power only intermittently, he said.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
RSS