Energy Transition in Taiwan:
A Rising Success or a Doomed Failure?

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of Energy Politics in Taiwan

Tony Yen
Tony Yen
Sep 8, 2018 · 4 min read

A few days ago I shared some updates on the energy politics in Taiwan with the Australian energy transition expert, Simon Holmes à Court, explaining why some Taiwanese depict South Australia as having an unreliable grid due to high variable renewable penetration.

Since the anti-energy transition referendum has just gained sufficient petitions to vote, I think it is about time to introduce to my foreign readers about the mess we are having right now in Taiwan regarding energy politics. Below is a quick scan of the entire content.

Unless otherwise listed, the sources of the content can be found in the following Energypedia page. The website is maintained by one of my colleagues in the REM program, and I highly recommend it should you want to learn more about renewable energy.

A short side note on coal and carbon emission plans: The total carbon emissions of electricity in Taiwan is planned to peak in 2017 at 271 Million tonnes CO2 eq, and reduced to 239 Million tonnes CO2 eq.

In the recent years, coal use in electricity generation stagnates at around 45%. The government promised that the share of coal use in electricity generation peaks in 2017, and by 2020 it will be tamed to no more than 43%.

A Taiwanese naysayer telling us how a catastrophic blackout would occur if all the wind turbines in Taiwan go from 100% power output to zero in half an hour, but gives no valid spatial correlation analysis of wind field in Taiwan such as the one the Germans did to support such claim. Source

RE Members

Covering renewable energy development and deployment around the world.

Tony Yen

Written by

Tony Yen

A Taiwanese student who studies Renewable Energy in Freiburg.

RE Members

Covering renewable energy development and deployment around the world.

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