Achieve energy self-sufficiency in energy-heavy industries (EHI) according to the latest energy regulations

ABSTRACT

The “Energy Transition Promotion Scheme: Promote Green Energy, Increase Nature Gas, Reduce Coal-fired, Achieve Nuclear-free” (The Policy) was launched in 2016 and was legally tied to the “Renewable Energy Development Act” (REDA) after its revision in 2019 in Taiwan. The “Regulations for the Management of Setting up Renewable Energy Power Generation Equipment of Power Users above a Certain Contract Capacity” (The Regulations) were released in late 2020 and represent the first regulations requiring physical renewable energy infrastructure in building construction. The Regulations focus on the group that consumes the most energy, energy-heavy industries (EHIs), and force them to reach a certain energy self-sufficiency. However, there was no information about the implementation of these regulations, and The Regulations had limited scientific support. This research aims to simulate the energy potential of following The Regulations through a case study to evaluate if the use of The Regulations reaches the target of The Policy. The results show that the energy generation potential can only reach 5% of energy self-sufficiency at the peak load hours through a rooftop solar energy system, which is the first option in The Policy. This would be worse if the annual energy consumption is considered as the comparison target or if the amount of installation is decreased by following the deduction rules. The simulation results show that the rules concerning deducting the renewable energy infrastructure should be revised and should instead encourage more installation to at least raise the energy self-efficiency condition.

KEYWORDS:

• Solar energy
• energy self-sufficiency
• satellite-based TMY
• energy regulation
• energy policy

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the TASA, Taiwan Space Agency, Taiwan under Grant TASA-1120450.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Taiwan Space Agency, Taiwan (TASA) [TASA-1120450].