The Taipei City Government yesterday held a launch ceremony for a photovoltaic power plant named Taipei Energy Hill, which is capable of generating 2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.
The power plant in the Fudekeng Environmental Restoration Park in the city’s Muzha (木柵) area, is built on the site of of a former landfill and consists of 8,000 solar panels covering about 3 hectares.
The electricity generated by the plant would help the city reduce yearly carbon dioxide emissions by 1,000 tonnes, which is three times the amount that Daan Forest Park can absorb in a year, the Taipei Department of Environmental Protection said.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
The department in July last year signed a contract with Taipei-based Tatung Co (大同), a leader in the nation’s photovoltaic industry, to build the power plant.
Touting the facility as a model for “green” electricity generation, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said at the ceremony that the power plant has generated 153,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity since it went online last month, which translates into an about 80-tonne reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
The city provided the land on which the power plant was built and Tatung provided the photovoltaic panels, Ko said.
The electricity generated by the plant would be sold to state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), he said.
According to the contract, Tatung is to pay the city government 10 percent of the revenue it makes from selling electricity, which costs about NT$5 per kilowatt-hour, which is like “rent” paid by the firm, the mayor said.
To boost solar energy generation, the city government has contracted out two projects to Tatung to install solar panels on the roofs of central and city government agencies, Ko said.
In other news, Ko yesterday fielded media questions about illegally built mezzanines in Neihu District (內湖).
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) yesterday reported that the city government has made an exception for the district to legalize the mezzanines by allowing property owners to pay a fee for the additional floor space.
Ko took issue with the word “legalize,” saying the city government would ensure that owners pay fees that apply to extra floor space created by mezzanines, adding that structures that do not conform to regulations would be torn down.
If property owners do not contact the city government by July 1, the structures would be torn down, he said.
Taipei Construction Management Office spokesman Horng Der-haur (洪德豪) said people started building mezzanines in Neihu in the early 2000s after the former industrial zone was designated as a science park, which allowed offices and stores to be established.
As a result, people who own factories with raised ceilings built mezzanines into their houses and rented them out, he said.
There are 147 units in 52 buildings in Neihu with illegal mezzanines, he said.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
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