The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) on Sunday said that a “sandbox project” for green electricity distribution is scheduled to be implemented at the end of the year with the aim of solving big enterprises’ problem of allocating renewable energy among multiple factory sites.
It is possible for a business entity to have several sites that have different levels of demand for green energy — some might require 100 percent renewable energy (RE100), while some need none at all, said the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection, which is also the authority overseeing the National Renewable Energy Certification Center.
Under the current mechanism, a private renewable energy plant that has signed power purchase agreements with enterprises is required to indicate in a “wheeling” contract, signed with Taiwan Power Co, (Taipower, 台電) that its green electricity is to be distributed to which particular factory sites at what amount, cementing the distribution ratio in the contract from the very beginning, the bureau said.
Photo: CNA
“Wheeling,” as explained in the Electricity Act (電業法), means that an “electricity transmission and distribution corporation installs power grids to transmit and distribute electricity,” and the corporation is exclusively Taipower, which manages the nation’s electricity grid.
Taiwan’s electricity is based on a time-of-use rate, measured in 15-minute spans, further restricting freedom of the use of the transmitted green energy.
The bureau said a renewable energy plant does not generate the same amount of electricity every month — wind power varies depending on the weather — and the consumption of energy varies every month as well. This would result in a lack of green energy at some sites, but an excess at others.
“Take a renewable energy plant that generates about 2,000 kilowatt-hours a month, and it agrees to distribute half of its generation to an enterprise’s factory in Taipei and a quarter each to factories in Taichung and Kaohsiung respectively, for the enterprise to fulfill the Taipei factory’s estimated need of 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month to reach RE100,” bureau section head Huang Chih-wen (黃志文) said.
In this case, either generating less electricity than expected or overuse by the user could result in the Taipei factory failing to reach RE100, Huang said.
In the sandbox project, enterprises who have signed power purchase agreements with renewable energy plants can freely distribute the electricity among their factories.
The “sandbox” indicates that the project is testing new ways to accommodate big enterprises’ needs that are not allowed in the existing regulatory framework, he said.
Asked on Monday whether the project was due to a request from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), Huang said many large enterprises with multiple factories have made the request.
He said that the project, to be rolled out at the end of the year, is a pilot program to be first executed by a few companies and would be in need of further adjustment.
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