Renewable Energy in Taiwan - My Tainan Renewable Energy Trip

We visited Tainan city which is situated on the southwestern coastal plains of the island and enjoys a warm climate year-round. Not only the oldest city on the island, Tainan has been rated as a top-ranked city by the Taiwan government for promoting renewable energy. The Anping Port is used as the main operating port for the offshore wind farm.

On the field research trip, I visited

A factory using solar panels on the rooftop
A local EPC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction) contractor and the Fish and electricity symbiosis site they are currently constructing.
Anping port pier which stores the wind farm base.

My takeaways from this trip :

From both national security and future AI developments, Taiwan, as a tech hub, will need more diversified and sustainable energy resources to further grow in the future.
Not just trend-following, but adopting renewable energy has positive economic benefits for business owners. Using rooftops as solar farms will not only bring in additional income, but more and more US/European buyers require “green energy” to be used during the manufacturing processes. So renewable energy from a business standpoint is beneficial.
Even though renewable energy is getting increasingly popular, there are still many local people (especially in rural areas) who have many misunderstandings about solar panels and farms, especially related to pollution and their impact on farmlands. The Taiwanese government should implement education to break this misunderstanding.

Background Research:

About 90% of Taiwan's carbon emissions come from energy use. How to effectively achieve net zero in the power system is a very important task. As the world is also gradually working to reduce carbon emissions, the fastest-growing alternative energy source in the next 30 years may be renewable energy according to the International Energy Agency's plan.

As for Taiwan, government-owned Taipower proposed a 10-year, 500-billion grid resilience plan in 2022. They hope that renewable energy generation can be combined with energy storage to make the overall power supply more stable and the power grid more efficient.

The first important task is to expand the growth of green energy. In the past 20 years, the growth rate of green energy in Taiwan has increased by only one percentage point every 10 years. However, starting seven years ago, Taipower began to actively plan for green energy. In 2023, Taiwan's green energy accounted for 9.5%. It is estimated such a percentage to exceed 15% by 2025, and reach 20% in 2026. According to their plan, in 2030, the percentage of green energy is expected to increase to between 27% and 30%, and ultimately green energy will account for about 60% to 70% of Taiwan’s total power generation according to the plan of the National Development Council.