Taiwan’s Wind Power Ambitions Are in Peril

The incoming administration must act quickly to stave off an energy crisis. It should start with throwing out local procurement rules.

2024年4月17日 at GMT+8 上午5:00
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...ns-are-in-peril

When J.W. Kuo takes up his new role as Taiwan’s economics minister next month, he’ll need to move fast if he’s to salvage one of the government’s signature projects. Policy conflict and misguided goals threaten to sink outgoing president Tsai Ing-wen’s hopes of achieving renewable-energy targets, and it will be Kuo’s job to either kill that dream or rewrite existing policy to get plans back on track.
Multiple phases of offshore wind projects have revealed cracks in government policy. A smooth ride would have meant Taiwan hitting Tsai’s 2016 target of getting 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Instead, byzantine and inflexible local-procurement rules and limits on project sizes have led to cost overruns, delayed rollouts and prospective contractors leaving the market altogether. These challenges collide headlong with the planned phase out of nuclear generators, inching Taiwan toward a power crunch and a repeat of blackouts experienced over the past decade.
It didn’t have to be this way. Wind power plants are historically among the most reliable out of more than two dozen types of major undertakings tracked by Bent Flyvbjerg, the renowned professor at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and pioneer of the long-term study of megaprojects.
Nuclear storage facilities have the worst track record, Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner write in their book How Big Things Get Done, with a mean cost overrun of 238%. Olympic Games come in at an average 157% more than projected. Wind power, on the other hand, is a hands-down winner, blowing budgets by just 13%, bested only by energy transmission infrastructure (8%) and solar power (1%).
There’s a reason why wind and solar have a history of on-time and on-budget delivery, and Taiwan’s policymakers would do well to remember it.
Both types of infrastructure are modular, which means they can benefit from economies of scale and prior knowledge on how to deliver. Developers can build, perfect, iterate and repeat smaller power plants, getting better in increments as they head toward completion. And this gradual improvement can be carried on to the next contract. Nuclear storage and Olympic Games suffer from the opposite: They’re invariably one-off bespoke deals and by their very nature fall victim to the Eternal Beginner Syndrome — teams are learning from scratch each time.
Taiwan’s offshore wind-power farms, which are supposed to be sprouting up off the west coast in the Taiwan Strait, ought to have offered the same benefits. Global contractors including Ørsted A/S, Northland Power Inc., and Jera Co. brought their experience from past projects to Taiwan but were stymied. Instead of buying components from familiar and proven suppliers, contract rules force them to buy at least 60% of their parts locally. What’s more, the government stipulates exactly which of those bits and pieces must be domestic. Items ranging from foundation jackets to survey vessels are subject to these requirements.
Wind Power Should Be Smooth Sailing
These are among the most reliable megaprojects when measured in terms of meeting expected costs
Source: Flyvbjerg and Gardner, "How Big Things Get Done"
But Taiwan has neither the experience nor the capacity for this. That means economies of scale and prior knowledge are both lost. In some cases, only one or two domestic companies have the production capability, creating monopolies that drive up the price while still lacking the ability to deliver on time. Yet it is the master contractor who must pay the penalty for delays, forcing costs even higher. These budget overruns and rollout delays in earlier phases have spurred some developers to not even show up for later rounds.
In a round of auctions in 2022 — where contractors bid to provide power to the government’s electricity monopoly at the lowest price — at least seven consortia offered to sell to Taiwan Power Co. at near-zero cost, according to data compiled by BloombergNEF. In doing so, winners get a mandate to build offshore wind farms, and bet that they can find an alternative buyer who’ll pay a price that will cover their costs. If they can, they’re not required to sell to Taipower at the winning bid. Their customers would instead be Taiwanese corporations with a need for renewable energy and a willingness to sign long-term contracts.
Yet power providers are still hamstrung by local procurement laws, which drive up budgets and with them the point at which contractors can be expected to make a return on their investment. The biggest risk is that some of these winning bidders do not land a corporate power-purchase agreement and let their mandate lapse with no penalty, leaving Taiwan without the renewable energy it so desperately needs as it shuts down nuclear reactors that were once the backbone of the economy’s electricity supply.
It’s not too late. Kuo comes from the corporate world and is the chairman of Taipei-based industrial-equipment maker Topco Group, which counts Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. among its clients. Importantly, according the company’s annual report, “he has expertise in leadership and strategic development planning.” Those are skills he’ll need when he joins the cabinet upon the May 20 inauguration of Tsai’s elected successor Lai Ching-te.
If he wants to salvage those wind-power goals, he will need to pick a policy, and quickly. The only path forward is to relax the procurement rules and allow contractors to buy parts from whomever they want at competitive global prices. The government might also consider spurring local companies to buy renewables, either with carrots (subsidies) or sticks (mandates).
If, on the other hand, the goal is to use protectionism to try and seed a local wind-power industry, then Taiwan must be willing to spend orders of magnitude more for its electricity and accept a high chance of failure. Should that be the choice, then Taiwanese citizens and companies should brace for more power blackouts in years to come.

臺灣的風電野心岌岌可危
即將上任的政府必須迅速採取行動，以避免能源危機。它應該從廢除當地採購規則開始
2024年4月17日 at GMT+8 上午5:00

當郭智輝下個月就任台灣經濟部長，如果他想挽救政府的標誌性項目之一，他就需要迅速採取行動。政策衝突和誤導性的目標可能會破壞即將離任的總統蔡英文實現可再生能源目標的希望，而郭的工作就是要么扼殺這一夢想，要么重寫現有政策以使計劃重回正軌。

離岸風電計畫的多個階段暴露了政府政策的缺陷。如果順利的話，台灣將實現蔡英文2016 年提出的到2025年20% 的電力來自可再生能源的目標。

預期承包商完全退出市場。這些挑戰與逐步淘汰核能發電機組的計畫相衝突，導致台灣陷入電力緊縮，並重演過去十年經歷的停電。

事情本來就不必是這樣的。歷史上，風力發電廠是牛津大學賽德商學院著名教授、大型項目長期研究先驅本特·弗萊布約格（Bent Flyvbjerg）跟踪的兩打以上主要項目中最可靠的項目之一。
Flyvbjerg 和 Dan Gardner 在他們的《How Big Things Get Done》一書中寫道，核儲存設施的記錄最差，平均成本超支 238%。奧運的收入平均比預期高出 157%。另一方面，風電是毫無疑問的贏家，僅使預算增加了 13%，僅次於能源傳輸基礎設施 (8%) 和太陽能 (1%)。

風能和太陽能有著按時、按預算交付的歷史，這是有原因的，台灣的政策制定者最好記住這一點。

兩種類型的基礎設施都是模組化的，這意味著它們可以從規模經濟和如何交付的先驗知識中受益。開發人員可以建造、完善、迭代和重複較小的發電廠，在接近完工時逐步變得更好。而這種逐步的改進可以延續到下一份合約。

核儲存和奧運會的遭遇恰恰相反：它們總是一次性的定制交易，而且本質上成為「永遠的初學者綜合症」的受害者——團隊每次都從頭開始學習。

台灣離岸風力發電場本應在台灣海峽西海岸興起，也應該能帶來同樣的好處。 奧斯特、北地電力公司和 Jera Co. 等全球承包商將過去專案的經驗帶到台灣，但遭到阻礙。

合約規則迫使他們至少 60% 的零件在本地購買，而不是從熟悉且經過驗證的供應商那裡購買零件。

更重要的是，政府明確規定哪些零碎的東西必須是國內的。從基礎導管架到勘測船的各種物品均須遵守這些要求。

但台灣沒有這方面的經驗，也沒有能力。這意味著規模經濟和先驗知識都消失了。在某些情況下，國內只有一兩家公司具備生產能力，形成壟斷，推高價格，但仍缺乏按時交貨的能力。

然而，總承包商必須為延誤支付罰金，從而迫使成本更高。在早期階段的預算超支和推出推遲激勵了一些開發商甚至不參加後續階段的競標

根據彭博新能源財經(BloombergNEF) 編製的數據，在2022 年的一輪拍賣中，承包商競標以最低價格向政府電力壟斷企業提供電力，至少有七個財團提出以接近零的成本向台灣電力公司出售電力。

在此過程中，得標者獲得了建造離岸風電場的授權，並打賭他們可以找到替代買家，而該買家所支付的價格足以覆蓋其成本。如果可以的話，他們不需要以中標價格出售給台電。

相反，他們的客戶將是需要再生能源並願意簽署長期合約的台灣企業。

然而，電力供應商仍受到當地採購法的限制，這些法律推高了預算，也提高了承包商有望獲得投資回報的水平。最大的風險是，其中一些得標者沒有簽署企業購電協議，並讓他們的授權失效而不受懲罰，導致台灣無法獲得急需的可再生能源，因為它正在關閉曾經是經濟電力供應骨幹的核電機組

現在還不算太晚，郭出身企業界，是台北工業設備製造商崇越集團的董事長，台積電是該公司的客戶。重要的是，根據該公司的年度報告，“他擁有領導力和戰略發展規劃方面的專業知識。”這些都是他在 5 月 20 日蔡英文當選繼任者賴清德就職典禮後加入內閣時所需要的技能。

如果他想挽救那些風力發電目標，他需要盡快制定一項政策。唯一的出路是放寬採購規則，允許承包商以具有競爭力的全球價格向任何他們想要的人購買零件。政府也可能考慮透過獎勵（補貼）或懲罰性措施（強制）來刺激當地公司購買再生能源。

另一方面，如果目標是利用保護主義來培育當地風電產業，那麼台灣必須願意在電力上花費更多的錢，並接受很高的失敗機會。如果這是選擇，那麼台灣民眾和企業應該要為未來幾年更多的停電做好準備。
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這篇和天下雜誌那篇根本是上下集或你要說前言後語也行

丟臉，停電跳電缺電到國際媒體還幫忙宣傳

當初外界要用以核養綠幫這無能政府錯誤能源政策解套還不領情，真TMD 犯賤

老實說就算廢掉現有採購法限制，那個2025年要達到20% 綠電也是天方夜譚