Taiwan Today

Taiwan is tapping geothermal resources, biogas and marine currents to help power a sustainable future.

For decades, tourists have traveled to northeastern Taiwan’s Yilan County to soak in its numerous hot springs. Now the county is seeking to use its abundant geothermal resources for another purpose—to help power a sustainable future.

In August last year, the county government unveiled a three-year plan to double Yilan’s renewable energy capacity to 80 megawatts. While the current total of 40 MW is generated by two hydroelectric power stations and a refuse incineration plant, the vast majority of the new clean energy is expected to come from geothermal and solar projects. “Our ultimate goal is to transform Yilan into a green energy county fully powered by renewables,” said Kang Li-ho (康立和), acting director of the county government’s Environmental Protection Bureau.

Under the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Taiwan has set a target of increasing the ratio of electricity generated via renewable sources from the current 4 percent to 20 percent by 2025. Geothermal is set to play a small yet significant role in this transition, with the Bureau of Energy (BOE) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs planning to add 150 MW of geothermal capacity to the nation’s energy mix within the next four years.

Yilan’s plentiful hot springs suggest it may have the greatest geothermal energy potential of any region in the nation. Projects are already underway to build four geothermal power stations in the county with a combined capacity of some 20 MW. “Geothermal is a stable, 24-hour source of electricity,” Kang said.

Untapped Potential

Of Yilan’s four planned geothermal plants, work is furthest along for a facility in the county’s Qingshui area. Initially conceived by the government-supported Industrial Technology Research Institute and now administered by a subsidiary of state-owned utility Taiwan Power Co., it is expected to become the nation’s first geothermal power station when it commences operations in 2020.

Construction has also begun on a plant financed by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) in the Hongchailin area. The MOST has hired the oil exploration unit of state-run energy supplier CPC Corporation, Taiwan to drill a roughly 3-km bore for the facility, with teams having already surpassed a depth of 2 km.

Planning work is nearing completion for the two other power stations. One of the proposed facilities is a collaborative project between the BOE and Forestry Bureau under the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture at the Renze hot spring resort, while the other is being developed by Lanyang Geothermal Corp. in the Lize area.

According to Kao Cheng-yan (高成炎‬), founder of Lanyang Geothermal, Taiwan possesses all the required technical know-how to achieve its geothermal energy targets. In particular, he believes CPC’s drilling expertise will help facilitate the rapid development of the sector, noting the company has experience creating bores as deep as 5 km.

A retired National Taiwan University professor and longtime anti-nuclear activist, Kao said that his company intends to use an experimental technology at its proposed plant that offers greater environmental protection than traditional approaches.

Called Complex Energy Extraction from Geothermal resources, this method creates a closed-loop system, eliminating groundwater use in the energy generation process and minimizing geostructural impacts. Kao said that Lanyang is also cooperating with a Japanese company based in Kyushu on the development of specialized steam turbines for geothermal energy generation.

Energy from Refuse

Yilan’s energy development programs extend beyond solar and geothermal initiatives. Of the 40 MW in additional renewable energy, the county government expects a small amount, about 2.2 MW, to come from sources such as biogas and hydro.

Local authorities are constructing an organic refuse resource center in Zhuangwei Township to process 200 metric tons of refuse matter, mostly animal excretions, each day. This facility has a planned capacity of 400 kilowatts.

Biogas development has gathered pace across Taiwan in recent years due in large part to the efforts of state-owned Taiwan Sugar Corp. (Taisugar). A leading member of the Taipei City-based Taiwan Biomass Energy Industry Association, Taisugar runs the nation’s largest pig farming business, operating 19 locations producing about 380,000 hogs annually.

To date, the agricultural firm has installed biogas generators at four of its pig farms in southern Taiwan’s Pingtung County. However, while these devices produce electricity, they are primarily designed to protect the environment by consuming methane.

Late last year, the company unveiled plans to introduce cutting-edge generators that can produce significantly larger amounts of energy at a number of its facilities around the country. At Donghaifong Farm in Pingtung’s Changzhi Township, for instance, Taisugar plans to invest NT$688 million (US$21.6 million) on installing advanced European biogas technologies that will generate energy using manure collected from the approximately 30,000 pigs at the facility as well as from chickens, ducks and other animals at 24 privately owned farms in the area.

Scheduled for completion in late 2018, the Donghaifong facilities will have a capacity of roughly 200 kW. According to Taisugar, the project can serve as a role model to other enterprises in the development of circular agriculture, which advocates the use of waste materials in production processes so as to minimize pollution.

The new biogas initiative will enhance the firm’s competitiveness and profitability while helping fulfill its corporate environmental responsibility, Charles Huang (黃育徵), the company’s president, told lawmakers during a committee meeting at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei last November. Taisugar’s efforts form part of a wider BOE program to increase the country’s current 740 MW capacity from biogas and other biomass sources, including domestic and industrial waste, to 768 MW by 2020.

Sea Change

As an island nation with limited land resources, Taiwan is also seeking to take advantage of the energy potential in the waters off its coast. The MOST is funding a project by local scientists to investigate marine current power, an experimental approach that aims to harness energy from undersea currents.

Taiwan is well placed to explore this renewable resource. The Kuroshio current, meaning “black tide” in Japanese, flows northward along the west side of the North Pacific Ocean from Luzon Island in the Philippines past Taiwan to Japan before merging with the North Pacific Current. Passing Taiwan’s southern tip at Pingtung’s Hengchun Peninsula, the Kuroshio makes its way along the east coast of the island on a more than 100-km-wide path moving at speeds of up to 1.5 meters per second.

“Ocean currents could prove to be an even more potent energy source than geothermal,” said Chen Yang-yih (陳陽益), a professor in the Department of Marine Environment and Engineering at National Sun Yat-sen University in southern Taiwan’s Kaohsiung City. “Taiwan is one of the best places in the world for marine current projects because the Kuroshio flows so close to the coastline.”

Chen is leading a MOST-backed research team comprising experts from universities, government research institutes and companies specializing in marine construction and turbine manufacturing. An initial test project launched by the scientists has already achieved significant results.

On July 25 last year, Chen’s team installed a 50 kW power unit off the southeastern coast of Hengchun. The turbine was placed some 30 meters below the surface of the water and connected to a base on the seabed 900 meters below. Propelled by currents moving at 1.27 meters per second, the unit operated successfully for some 60 hours until the conclusion of the test.

According to Chen, marine current outperforms other ocean-based options such as tidal in terms of reliability. “Recent advances have also addressed some of the major concerns with the technology such as the salt tolerance of equipment and the entanglement of marine organisms.”

Spurred by their initial success, Chen’s team is pressing forward with additional tests. Their ultimate objective is to establish the nation’s first marine current power station off the coast of Hengchun by 2020. The MOST is hopeful that the project can help further the government’s goal of shuttering Taiwan’s three active nuclear plants, one of which is located in Hengchun, by 2025.

“Local people really welcome this project,” the professor said. “It could create considerable job opportunities and also advance efforts to decommission the nuclear plant in their area.”

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw