Thu, Aug 09, 2018 page4

• Race on to replace nuclear generation

  HIGH-RISK GAMBLE: The government’s drive to shut down all of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants by 2025 poses significant problems in the short and medium terms

  • By Dan Murtaugh, Miaojung Lin and Samson Ellis / Bloomberg
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  A map at the guardhouse of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) shows what might have been: classrooms, dormitories, a grocery store, a police station.

  It was supposed to be a self-contained city on Taiwan’s northeast coast designed to meet growing demand for electricity in Asia’s seventh-largest economy.

  Instead, the complex stands empty — unfinished and never used — a US$10 billion casualty of growing public opposition to nuclear power.

  

  The sun sets behind an offshore wind turbine operated by Swancor Holding in the Taiwan Strait off the coast of Miaoli County on July 26.

  Photo: Billy H.C. Kwok, Bloomberg

  Since a disastrous 2011 nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, more than 2,250km away, Taiwan has rewritten its energy plans.

  President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has ordered all of the nation’s nuclear reactors to be shut down by 2025.

  That has set off a high-risk gamble to find alternatives to nuclear power, which supplies 12 percent of the nation’s electricity, while limiting an increase in carbon emissions.

  

  The mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is pictured in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District on Feb. 21 last year.

  Photo: Lin Hsin-han, Taipei Times

  Taiwan’s sprint reflects a drive across the region toward cleaner energy sources such as solar, wind and natural gas.

  Nations from Australia to South Korea and China to India are seeking to meet rising demand without belching more emissions blamed for climate change and smog.

  Taiwan’s solution: Wind turbines are planned in the blustery Taiwan Strait, solar panels are popping up on coastal salt flats and terminals are being planned to import more liquefied natural gas.

  However, new sources could take years to develop, making power rationing and blackouts a possibility as the gap narrows between demand and generating capacity.

  “There are going to be concerns over the next few years about reserve margins and power supply reliability,” IHS Markit analyst Diao Zhouwei said in Beijing.

  The government’s plan has several parts. First, all nuclear and most oil-fueled generators will be shut down. Together, they supplied 16 percent of Taiwan’s electricity in 2016.

  The nation would still have about the same amount of coal capacity by 2025 as now, but its share of total power generation is to drop to 30 percent from about half as alternative energy sources expand.

  Natural gas is to see the biggest usage gain, accounting for half of supply by 2025, while renewables like wind and solar are to more than triple to 20 percent.

  As electricity demand grows over the next seven years, the government has said it would boost generating capacity while limiting carbon emissions and ridding itself of a political headache.

  Taiwan’s state-run nuclear power industry was already unpopular after it built a controversial nuclear waste storage site on Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼), home to one of the nation’s Aboriginal communities.

  However, sentiment turned even more negative after the disaster in Japan, which occurred after a giant earthquake and tsunami. The disaster prompted countries, including Germany and South Korea, to ditch their nuclear programs.

  Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) operates three nuclear plants and was building the fourth when the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant meltdown occurred.

  In 2014, the government halted construction that was nearly complete, with uranium fuel rods in place.

  In 2016, the Democratic Progressive Party won elections on an anti-nuclear power platform.

  Last month, workers removed the unused fuel rods and sold them to a buyer in the US.

  Betting that the nation can replace all that nuclear power in less than a decade — and expand output to meet rising demand — is “very ambitious,” Wood Mackenzie energy analyst Robert Liew said in Singapore.

  “The Taiwanese government is trying to prove the future is arriving faster than people thought. It’s been so far, so good, but let’s see what happens in three to four years. That’s the tricky part,” Liew said.

  The government’s decision has put the nation’s electricity grid in a precarious position.

  Four years ago, Taiwan had enough capacity to produce 15 percent more power than peak demand, or more than enough to handle unexpected plant outages, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said.

  That cushion fell to 10 percent in 2015 and as low as 1.7 percent in August last year, when several nuclear reactors were temporarily offline for maintenance.

  The margin has remained at more than 6 percent for most of this summer.

  Taipower has warned of the nation’s first power rationing since 2002.

  Last year, a mistake at a gas-fired power plant triggered a blackout that affected more than 6 million households and disrupted some semiconductor production.

  Industry groups, including the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce, have called for the government to reverse course on its nuclear phaseout and to open the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant to avoid future curtailments.

  The government has held firm to its plan. Part of the optimism comes from the plunging cost of building wind and solar projects around the world.

  There are also expanding supplies of cheap liquefied natural gas available from the Middle East, Australia and the US.

  However, it will take years for Taiwan to build the additional gas plants and liquefied natural gas import terminals it needs, and any delays could limit the nation’s ability to expand electricity production, Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Jonathan Luan said in Beijing, adding that large-scale solar and offshore wind projects are facing their own hurdles in the nation.

  Vena Energy operates Taiwan’s largest solar power installation, which can produce 5 megawatts from panels on 4 hectares near Yunlin County’s Kouhu Township (口湖).

  Flat, sun-exposed land is hard to come by, in part because about two-thirds of Taiwan is mountains.

  For its Kouhu project, Vena negotiated with more than 20 landowners and had to lay out panels at odd angles to avoid farmland and, in one case, a family tomb. Most of the panels are mounted above former salt flats.

  Singapore-based Vena has six more major solar projects lined up in Taiwan, although development of some has been slowed by delays in getting local permits.

  Work could speed up as officials become more familiar with utility-scale solar projects, which are new in the nation, Vena Energy Taiwan head Gavin Tan said.

  “We’re extremely bullish, and we’re doing what we can to get more megawatts done,” Tan said.

  Offshore wind is also new to Taiwan, but shows promise.

  The land masses of Taiwan and China corral air flowing above the East China Sea and funnel it through the 177km-wide Taiwan Strait, adding intensity to the gusts as they pass through to the South China Sea.

  “This is one of the best offshore wind resources in the world,” Luan said.

  In April, the government sought to encourage investment in the industry by offering to pay as much as US$199 per megawatt-hour for 3.8 gigawatts of supply from offshore wind turbines. Companies jumped at the offer, submitting more bids than were requested.

  In June, the government auctioned off another 1.7 gigawatts, awarding bids at less than half of the previous rate.

  Developing an offshore industry to expand supplies of cheap power could also kick-start a domestic industry with thousands of good-paying jobs making turbines, which could then compete for new projects elsewhere in Asia, including Vietnam and Japan.

  At the Port of Taichung, the wind power industry is beginning to take shape. Heaps of dirt and stones rise above the ground, cranes lower new pilings into the water and backhoes scoop slop from the seabed, all in an effort to strengthen wharves and deepen channels to build giant offshore wind turbines taller than the Met Life Tower.

  Taichung has also set aside land and is building roads, plumbing and power lines to lure manufacturers of everything from turbine towers and blades to gears and rotors.

  It just finished building a training center known as the Academy of Maritime Development and is hosting a group of local college students this summer to promote career choices in the offshore wind industry.

  “Young people have to leave Taichung to find work,” training center head Wang Kuo-ying (王國瑛) said. “This will give them the chance to build a good career without having to leave home.”
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