The Project is an extended one farmed out by the Environmental Protection Department of the New Taipei City Government (simply called Department) to continue to drive the operations of permitting, auditing, monitoring and controlling the stationary pollution sources, and to lay the foundation for air quality total quantity controls, so that the air quality may be effectively improved. According to the work content and goals, it may be divided into five major tasks: permits prevention and reduction management, industry process management, enterprise group total quantity management, fuel management, and project control operations.
1. In order to achieve the goal of the prevention and reduction management, during the permit review, the assessment of the improvement and reduction levels shall be conducted. In addition to encouraging the use of low-polluting fuel materials first, it requires effective air collection and prevention, and is extended to incorporate the management of harmful species. And in the areas where frequent grievances have been received, concentration monitoring and early warning mechanisms shall be established and graphical control measures shall be installed. To integrate air pollution-related laws and regulations, and be in line with the announcement of the permits management regulations, at the moment, all permits have been disclosed, all technician visa cases have been reviewed, and fuel permitted parties are required to comply with the newly announced fuel standards. The annual reductions in emissions due to substantial improvements in manufacturing processes or control equipment this year are 76 tonnes for particulate matter, 129 tonnes for sulfur oxides, 95 tonnes for nitrogen oxides, and 71 tonnes for VOCs.
2. In order to control the emission of VOCs or ozone precursors, the “Department’s Air Pollution Control Technical Guidelines for Surface Coating Procedures of Stationary Pollution Sources (Draft)" was additionally formulated this year. The proposed control specifications require, among other things, the installation of enclosing air collection system for high-effusion units such as coating machines (zones), and the control equipment should meet the emission limits of the non-methane hydrocarbon specified for the destructive emission pipes.
3. In order to enhance the general public’s satisfaction, since 2016, the Department has successively announced the review principles for the asphalt industry, promoted the change of fuel from heavy oil to natural gas, and subsidized the replacement of natural gas pipelines. Now the heavy oil has fully been changed into natural gas. And the improvements in the odor and particulate matter controls have reduced the number of grievances by about 70%. After the improvement, it is estimated that the annual reductions will be about 24 tonnes for particulate pollutants, 103 tonnes for sulfur oxides, and 70 tonnes for nitrogen oxides.
4. In order to suppress the growth of pollution, the emission concentration control or total permitted emission quantity management (50% of the total permitted issued quantity being controllable) has been conducted for the enterprise groups within New Taipei City, including Taipower, Nanya, and Goldsun. In addition to the agreement to tighten the emission concentration of particulate matter, sulfur oxides, and nitrogen oxides, Taipower Linkou Power Plant agreed to adopt the heavy metal emission standards applied by the new coal-fired power plants in the United States, and was required to install a continuous automatic monitoring system for mercury. The system installation for Unit 3 has currently been completed. Both its automatic monitoring results and the actually measured values at the emission pipes are in line with the environmental assessment and the permitted values. Nanya’s coal-fired units for cogeneration will be gradually changed to the use of natural gas in conjunction with the municipal government’s coal-fired facilities withdrawal mechanism. In addition, Nanya is required to improve the existing process, reduce the output or even relocate the plant for its increase in emissions which was caused by the transformation or expansion of the plant.
5. To reflect public opinion, the New Taipei City Government has driven the withdrawal of coal-fired facilities of the small- and medium-sized enterprises. At present, except for Taipower, Nanya and the like using the electricity generation and co-cogeneration boilers, there are 21 firms in New Taipei City using coal-fired boilers, all of which have been replaced, improved or disabled. Additionally, in response to the announcement of fuel composition standards and regulations, we have counselled and required the eight off-standard firms in the City to comply with the regulations before the law takes effect.
