Metal industry research center orchestrates wind power group

This article was written by Bowun Jhu and published by the Taiwan Journal on September 16, 2005. It features the Wind-Generation Industry Club, which was launched recently in Taipei.

The club is initiated by the government-supported Metal Industries Research and Development Center. It will serve as a platform for the exchange of information on equipment, technologies, market trends and business opportunities in the field of wind power. Its mission is to help interested parties enter this field and to build up a supply chain of equipment components.

In recent years, Taiwan has been promoting renewable energy, with the main focus on wind and solar energy. The Ministry of Economic Affairs recently launched a project for the promotion of the renewable-energy equipment industry.

Currently, the electricity-generating capacity of wind-powered facilities in Taiwan is only about 10,000 kilowatts. However, it is hoped that wind energy will eventually account for 35 percent of Taiwan's renewable energy, followed by hydropower, bio-mass, solar and geothermal energy.