Politics

Ma unveils LED lighting plan

• Publication Date：05/17/2010
• Source： Economic Daily News

ROC President Ma Ying-jeou said May 16 that starting from next year all 1.3 million conventional street lamps nationwide will be replaced with light-emitting diode devices.

With the island’s traffic lights to be supplanted by LEDs by the end of this year, the government in the future will purchase LED devices to enlarge the domestic green-energy market and encourage research and development to help Taiwan’s LED industry catch up with developed countries such as Germany and Japan, Ma said in his first announcement on government moves in this area.

The president’s remarks came during a visit to industry leader Delta Electronics Inc. Bruce C.H. Cheng, Delta chairman, announced at the site that his company will invest NT$20 billion (US$628 million) in the industry locally to comply with the government’s strategy.

The administration’s plan is expected to usher in an era of LED lighting. Unnamed industry sources estimated that the total market value of local LED street lamps is more than NT$10 billion. Given the existing shortage of LED epitaxial chips, the administration’s promotion of LED applications could extend the shortfall into next year.

The LED sector has achieved much more than the other six sectors of the green energy industry, according to Ministry of Economics Affairs sources. Ma said Taiwan’s LEDs and solar cells have managed to capture leading positions worldwide.

Local LED production volume stands as the world’s largest, while ranking second in value. The island’s global LED market share rallied to 25 percent in 2009 from 16 percent in 2008, and Taiwan’s solar cell production value is the third largest in the world, the president noted.

Meanwhile, local players have completed the assembly of their first 2-megawatt wind turbine nacelle, putting Taiwan at No. 8 globally in capacity for large wind turbine equipment manufacture.

Ma said green energy is an important direction for his administration, with energy saving and carbon emissions reduction a must do. To facilitate changes in industrial structure, the government will strengthen the development of the green energy industry, rather than focusing only on the information technology industry, he added.

In related news, Ma inspected construction work at the Linkou Station of the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Metropolitan Rapid Transit line in Taipei County, accompanied by outgoing Vice Premier Eric Li-luan Chu, Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chih-kuo and Taipei County Magistrate Chou Hsi-wei.

In his briefing to the president, Ju Hsu, director-general of the Bureau of High Speed Rail, pointed out that the airport is the hub of the TTIA MRT line, with tracks going eastward via Taipei County’s Linkou, Xinzhuang and Sanchong to the main railway station in Taipei City.

The rapid transport line also connects southwards via the Taoyuan Station of the Taiwan High Speed Rail to Huanbei Road in Zhongli City in Taoyuan County, and then extends to the Zhongli Railway Station to link up with the Taiwan Railway Administration’s tracks.

Ju said the section between Sanchong and Huanbei is scheduled to begin operations June 2013, while trains will run on the Sanchong-Taipei Main Station leg from October 2014, and the Huanbei-Zhongli Railway Station section will go into service June 2018.

Because the TTIA line provides both metropolitan mass rapid transit and outbound transportation to the airport, there will be express and local trains on the schedule, according to Ju. In the future, services such as air flight check-in and luggage shipment will be provided at the Taipei Main Station,” he said.

Responding to Ju’s report, Ma said while travel times and intervals between trains on the future airport line may have been determined by experts on the basis of cost effectiveness, what people really need is convenience.

“For example, will there be a nonstop express between the Taipei Main Station and the airport?” he asked, adding that reducing travel time is another subject to be considered.

The president said as mass rapid transport is a type of green transportation, the government should not just provide the public “the choice of taking the MRT to the airport.”

“If we can further shorten the travel time, even fewer people will drive to the airport,” he concluded. (HML-SJH-THN)