CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) are on March 21 to sign a cooperation agreement to harness geothermal energy at Renze Hot Spring (仁澤溫泉) in Yilan County, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister publication of the Taipei Times) reported yesterday, citing sources at the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Under the cooperation plans, CPC would drill one or two wells near the hot spring to conduct tests, the newspaper said, adding that if the tests are successful, the state-run refiner would hand over the project to Taipower, which would be tasked with generating geothermal power.
Given the large number of hot springs in the county, the potential for geothermal energy in Yilan is huge.
CPC said it selected Renze for the tests after geological evaluation because it has greater potential to develop geothermal energy than other areas in Taiwan.
Moreover, the plots of land on the site in Renze belong to the Forestry Bureau, making the process less costly and time-consuming than if the company were to lease land from private owners, the newspaper said.
CPC has ample experience drilling geothermal wells and in 1981 helped set up a geothermal power plant in the county’s Cingshuei (清水) area, which was shut down in 1993 as its generators became less efficient.
Taipower is interested in developing geothermal energy and is simultaneously engaged in a geothermal development project on Green Island (綠島) this year.
The state-run utility has carried out well tests and is on track to build a small geothermal power station capable of generating 200kW of electricity on the island by next year, the Liberty Times said, adding that Taipower plans to build a larger geothermal power plant there capable of generating 40 megawatts of electricity by 2020.
The Bureau of Energy has said that the government’s target is to install 200 megawatts of geothermal generation capacity by 2025, as part of the Democratic Progressive Party administration’s pledge to establish a “nuclear-free homeland” by that year.
Separately, CPC yesterday announced that it would lower fuel prices this week, as crude oil prices dropped last week after Saudi Arabia lowered its prices for Arab Light sold to Asia and amid a continued increase in US crude oil inventories.
CPC said in a statement that its average crude oil cost fell by US$1.11 per barrel to US$62.41.
That means it is to cut gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.2 per liter starting today after factoring in the New Taiwan dollar’s depreciation of NT$0.011 against the US dollar, the refiner said.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
RSS