On the basis of the construction of a low-carbon city, Environmental Protection Administration, Executive Yuan (hereafter refer to as the Administration) extended the concept to develop a sustainable society, and it actively promoted the “Low-Carbon Sustainable Homeland Promotion Plan” and proposed ten operating functions. In addition to mobilizing and integrating related units and manpower of the Administration, it also urged city and county governments to establish low-carbon sustainable homeland promotion offices to promote low-carbon and sustainable villages and communities together. The plan was divided into two tasks: one was the project of low-carbon sustainable homeland office, and the other was the project of energy saving diagnosis and low-carbon community reform. Tasks that have been completed and described are as follows:
I. Tasks of Project of 2013 Chiayi City Low-Carbon Sustainable Homeland Office (hereafter refer to as the Office)
This year the office mainly assisted Chiayi City in executing operating functions by arranging plans for 4 activities from 2 operating functions, “Green Transportation” and “Energy Saving Equipment”. Furthermore, the office held conferences related to the promotion of “Green Energy City and Low-Carbon Homeland”, and followed 5 Green Energy sections’ results executed by each bureau. The office also invited members from each bureau and Technology & Information group to discuss and revise the prospect construction project and related self-regulations for “Green Transportation” and “Energy saving equipment”. The following are briefly description for executing results.
1. The Office completed the prospect construction project of Chiayi City Green Transportation and set “Sustainable Green Energy Transportation” as objective. Besides, the office also established 3 ways of policy, including “Developing Green Transportation”、 “Enforcing management of Transportation requirement” and “Improving percentage of Green Transportation using”, and developed 7 action strategies.
2. The Office completed the prospect construction project of Chiayi City Energy Saving Equipment and set “Low-Carbon Homeland” as objective. Besides, the office also established 4 ways of policy, including “Promoting Energy Saving in Industry and Business”、 “Energy Saving New Life”、 “Intelligent Green Life” and “Utility of Renewable Energy”, and developed 13 action strategies.
3. Developing and establishing “Chiayi City Green Transportation Development self-regulation draft” and “Chiayi City energy saving and carbon reducing management self-regulation draft for Energy customers”.
4. Two cross-county and cross-city observation and learning events were held on May 21 and September 25, 2013 respectively. And the office led the members from each bureau、office and neighborhood, to observe Solar Power Plant System、Green Architecture and Low-Carbon neighborhood. Two events were held, and the achievement rate of the task was 100%.
5. The Office collected application requirements and information for international environmental protection organizations, proposed suggestions on the participation of International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and the signing of the Mexico City Pact, and also submitted application documents and information.
6. The Office designed the filling-in and reporting system on the website of “Green Energy City and Low-Carbon Homeland”, and collected coefficient of carbon reduction measurement, in order to let bureaus and offices fill in and figure out their execution results of 5 green energy functions. And this action can assist Chiayi City calculate its carbon reduction amount.
7. The Office evaluated the feasibility of rental system of public bicycles and submitted an evaluation report. The office suggested setting 65 rental spots in concentric circles way in the report, and predicted the benefit after establishing：Operating a year and replacing cars can reduce 10,812,610 kilograms carbon emission (almost 10,8131 tons), and 2,733,188 kilograms (almost 2,733 tons) if replacing motorcycles.
8. The Office assisted holding the Million Rooftop Promotion Orientation, and investigated the public roof space in every bureau and office. The investigation presented there were 73 sites can be settled, and total area was 41,349.49 square meters, allowing power reach to 3 million Wp. After that, the Chiayi City Government Environmental Protection Bureau and Legal Affair section in Administration department will discuss and draw up “Chiayi City public estate setting Solar Power Plant System renting points” draft, and handle other issues.
15. The Office guided Dingzhuang Community and Fanshe Community to promote Low-Carbon food、participating the selection of the Administration’s energy saving & carbon reducing action medal, and arrange prospect projects for communities. For each section, the office provided appropriate and sufficient information.
II. Tasks of Project of Energy Saving Diagnosis and Low-Carbon Community Reform
This year an energy saving guidance group was established, and it provided free energy saving diagnosis service. Besides, members of the group specialized in electricity, air-conditioning, lighting, water resources, renewable energy and green architecture. The project finished energy saving diagnosis and guidance service for 10 communities and business buildings, and the group offered the report of Low-Carbon diagnosis and proposed suggestions and cost benefits, such as suitable amount signing、 lighting equipments renewing and greening, for improving energy saving. If communities follow these suggestions to undergo replacement, then prediction of the investment was 570.22 thousands, the benefit of energy saving was 135,512 KWh/year, the green house gas would reduce 73.04 tons carbon dioxide equivalent per year.
In addition, the Office assisted to plan subsidies for the improvement of water saving facilities、lighting equipments、rooftop heatproof construction and neighborhood greening for Imperial Garden Community and Jingguo New City R Community. After completing all constructions, it can reduce green house gas emission 13.36 tons carbon dioxide equivalent per year.
Furthermore, in order to promote energy saving and carbon reducing, the Office also hold “Win NTD50,000 by Saving 5% Energy” activity. The condition to participate in is that any Chiayi City citizen can check his/her electricity or water bill, and if the rate of saved energy or conserved water is equal or over 5% compared with last year (only July-August and August-September two terms), then he/she can sign up the activity. The “Win NTD50,000 by Saving 5% Energy” stopped signing on October 31th, 2013, and concluded 65,120 degrees electricity saving compared with 2012. Besides, it also represented 34.6 tons carbon emission reducing (according to the electricity emission coefficient, 0.532 kilogram carbon dioxide equivalent per degree, announced by Energy Bureau in 2012). In water conserved, the number was 3,756 degrees compared with 2012, which also represented 0.63 tons carbon emission reducing (according to the water emission coefficient, 0.167 kilogram carbon dioxide equivalent per degree, announced by Taiwan Water Corporation in 2012).
III. Suggestions on Future Tasks
1. In order to solve government insufficient human resource problem, Chiayi City has to combine volunteer system and discipline its own energy saving volunteers. The discipline will include specific skill training and energy saving diagnosis experience taught. These energy saving volunteers will assist diagnosis in Chiayi City departments and business buildings, and they will provide energy saving suggestions and help in improvement constructions, in order to reach the carbon reducing benefit from these works.
2. The main electricity consumption units in Chiayi City are living and business sections. Therefore, in order to reduce electricity using amount, the project suggest that Chiayi City government can coordinate each bureau and office, and promote energy saving & carbon reducing guidance and management in stores、restaurants、supermarkets and shopping-malls, the tasks will include improving electricity using behaviors and replacing high energy consumption equipments.
3. Suggesting to promote contract-signing customers to save energy、reduce carbon and establishing intelligent energy saving system. Therefore, the customers can set up intelligent electricity controller to observe the energy trend of main electricity consuming utilities and understand the main improvement sections.
4. In order to operate with the Administration “Low-Carbon Sustainable Homeland Identified System” promotion, the project suggests that promotion of Low-Carbon & Sustainability will expand to the neighborhood, and will be represented by Low-Carbon neighborhood. And except Low-Carbon neighborhood provides its experience of promoting, there will be identified system to encourage another neighborhood to follow, and it can attract more neighborhoods to join the program.
5. Continuously maintaining filling-in and reporting system of the website of “Green Energy City and Low-Carbon Homeland”, and observing the status of promoting plans filling-in from each bureau and office for 5 Green Energy sections, and calculating the carbon reducing amount in order to present benefit.
6. In future related policy propagation, the project suggests that propagation can be presented by television news、neighborhood meeting、newspaper and television wall, in order to reach the objective of the plan. Besides, the propagation also can be held in stores and restaurants.
7. To assist Chiayi City to join international environmental protection organizations and to comprehend international promotion plans. Foreign promotion experiences can be adopted to plan promotion guidelines for Chiayi City.
