CHINA ENERGY WATCH: Taiwan Goes Green, But Is It Worthwhile?

Experts say money would be better spent on research and development, in part because Taiwan’s high population density and lack of available land act as constraints on the potential of solar energy and wind power. Central to the bill is the creation of a feed-in tariff, or the price that distributor Taiwan Power Co. must pay for electricity generated from renewables. This committee – comprising government officials, scholars and representatives of social groups – will assess the cost of producing renewable energy and approve a “reasonable” profit margin for generators, Wang said. “This is not a good bill, mainly because renewable energy’s cost-efficiency and energy efficiency is low,” says Daigee Shaw, president of Chung-Hua Institution For Economic Research, a government-funded think tank. According to estimates from HSBC, it costs 4.8 to 5.5 US cents to produce one kilowatt-hour of energy from coal. In contrast, the bank said 1 Kwh of solar power costs 15 to 40 US cents and 1 Kwh of nuclear energy costs 11 to 14.5 US cents. “The bottom line is that you’d still need to consider traditional sources of energy like coal and nuclear power,” said Liang Chi-Yuan, a research fellow at the Institute of Economics of Academia Sinica, a government-funded think tank. (July 1, 2009)