IEEJ Journal of Industry Applications Vol.1 No.1 pp.41–45 DOI: 10.1541/ieejjia.1.41

Paper

Smart Grid Development in Taiwan

∗ ∗∗ Chia-Chi Chu Non-member, Faa-Jeng Lin Non-member ∗ Po-Tai Cheng Member

(Manuscript received Dec. 21, 2011, revised April 6, 2012)

This paper introduces the current status of Taiwan’s smart grid technologies. The government policy and visions of the smart grid and the advanced metering infrastructure are first presented. An overview of the research effort in government laboratories and universities is also provided.

Keywords: renewable energy, smart grid, advanced metering infrastructure

a total installed capacity of 14.8 MW at an investment of 1. Taiwan’s Power System US$44.2 million from 2012 to 2015. In addition, TPC has Ever since the first coal-fire electric generator was installed been approved to invest US$112 million to develop solar pho- in 1888, Taiwan’s power grid has continued to grow to meet tovoltaic (PV) energy from 2008 to 2011 as the first stage. the needs of its people. In 1904, the first hydroelectric power The total installed PV capacity is 10 MW and will be com- station was commissioned in the suburb of Taipei. Several pleted in 2 MW, 3.5 MW, and 4.5 MW increments from 2009 small-scale, privately-owned electric companies flourished to 2011. since then, before they were all consolidated and became Tai- Since 2010, the installed capacity of renewable energy has wan Power Corporation (台灣電力株式會社) in July 31, 1919, reached 3,341 MW in Taiwan. Based on government tar- a corporation co-owned by the Taiwan Governor-General Of- get, installed capacity of renewable energy is projected to fice, the executive power during the colonial years, and sev- be around 10,858 MW in 2030 as shown in Fig. 2. Of the eral civilian organizations. This corporation initiates the con- renewable energy installed capacity, 2,502 MW will come struction of many generation facilities, including the Sun- from hydro, 3,156 MW from wind power, 2,500 MW from Moon Lake Hydroelectric Power Station, a very critical pump PV, 1,369 MW from wastes, 1331 MW from biogas, ocean storage facility in Taiwan’s power system, and the integra- energy, geothermal and hydrogen fuel cell. tion of transmission/distribution network previously belong 2.1 On-Shore Wind Farms TPC has been aggres- to various small power companies. Its generation capacity sively developing its wind power along the west coast of reached 320 MW in 1944. After the end of the World War II, Taiwan and Penghu islands because of their rich wind re- it was re-organized in 1946 and became Taiwan Power Com- sources. Most notably, Penghu has multiple renewable en- pany (TPC, 台灣電力公司), a state-owned monopoly and the ergy resources such as wind power, solar energy, tidal and so only power company in this country that operates the gen- on. Two circuits of 161 kV 200 MW 66.3 km HVAC subma- eration facilities, transmission/distribution network, and the rine cables are planned to connect the Kouhu P/Sinthewest retailing till today. TPC’s network is a typical south-north of Taiwan and the Penghu P/S in 2014 as shown in Fig. 4. longitudinal and isolated system as illustrated in Fig. 1. Ma- The main purpose of planning the submarine cable is to re- jor load centers are located in the northern part of Taiwan and place the 12 diesel engine generators on Penghu island. most of the power are supplied from the central and southern Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) has proposed a area through three parallel 345 kV corridors. In 2011, the five-year project from 2011 to 2015 with a US$ 248 million total generation capacity of TPC has reached 40.25 GW (1)as budget to establish a low carbon dioxide island as a standard described in Table 1. model in PengHu. The installed capacity of renewable en- ergy will be over 56% of the load demand in 2015 and car- 2. Renewable Energy Development bon dioxide reductions will be lower than 50% from the year TPC is in pace with other developed countries in promot- 2005. In other words, the amount of per capita carbon dioxide ing renewable energy developments aggressively. More re- emissions will be reduced to 2.1 tons from 5.4 tons from the cently, TPC is planning the fourth stage wind power develop- year 2008 and thus keep pace with other leading countries. ment project with 12 wind turbine generators (WTGs) and Currently, the capacity of existing wind power is 4.8 MW and 5.4 MW WTG is under construction. Moreover, ∗ Center for Advanced Power Technologies, Department of Taipower, Penghu County and wind power developers will Electrical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University plan to deploy 32 MW and 64 MW wind turbine generators Hsinchu, Taiwan ∗∗ Department of Electrical Engineering, National Central in five years. Hence, renewable energy for wind power will (2) University be one of the major natural resources in Penghu . Taoyuan, Taiwan 2.2 Off-Shore Wind Farms Offshore wind power

c 2012 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. 41 Smart Grid Development in Taiwan（Chia-Chi Chu et al.）

Fig. 1. Taiwan Power Company’s system (1)

Table 1. Taiwan Power Company’s generation capacity Taipower has planned most highly potential onshore wind in 2010 farms along the west coast of Taiwan. Moreover, it has in- vestigated several possible offshore wind farms. In particu- lar, ChungHua Offshore Wind Farm could become one of the largest wind farms in central Taiwan. Its site is around 140 square kilometers in size and more than 294 wind turbine generators (WTGs) could be installed there. If each wind turbine generator has 3.6 MW of capacity, the total installed capacity would be around 1,058 MW. The offshore wind farm can be separated into two development areas as shown in Fig. 3. There will be six phases (i.e. 30 WTGs, 60-66 WTGs, 48 WTGs, 55 WTGs, 44-54 WTGs, and 47 WTGs) to develop the offshore wind farm from the north to south areas. The first phase considers either 36 WTGs of 3.0 MW each or 30 WTGs of 3.6 MW each with a total of 108 MW installed capacity in the north area of offshore. In addition, the area of phase 1 will have four 33 kV of submarine cables to be connected to the onshore substation and set up to the 161 kV transmission lines to the HsienShi D/S (primary distribution substation). Fig. 2. Target of renewable energy installation outlined The onshore substation further includes 33 kV GIS, 161 kV by the Bureau of Energy, Ministry of Economic Affairs. (X axis: Year; Y axis: MW) GIS, 33 kV-161 kV step-up transformer along with 3-phase 120/150 MVA capacity, and so on. 2.3 Photovoltaics Although solar PV technology is generation has greater energy potential than onshore wind still evolving and has not reached mature commercial status, power generation and has been developed very successfully some solar PV system developers have been interested in de- in the European countries. The key issues are suitable en- ploying multiple tens-of-megawatt scale of solar PV in cen- vironment, managing installation and maximizing access. tral and southern Taiwan. Moreover, the local government

42 IEEJ Journal IA, Vol.1, No.1, 2012 Smart Grid Development in Taiwan（Chia-Chi Chu et al.）

Fig. 4. Organization of smart grid and AMI research under Taiwan’s smart grid strategic

year 2025 (4). Fig. 3. The proposed off-shore wind farm site in central Taiwan 3. The Smart Grid Development The renewable energy is expected to grow in the coming has proposed to develop a 25 MW solar PV in Ping Tung years as the government policy outlines. County of Southern Taiwan. The solar PV generation will The Smart Grid Strategic Initiatives are outlined as fol- be connected to the 11.4 kV distribution system. With the at- lows: tractive procurement prices for solar PV, Taiwan will face the • Develop the smart grid and advanced metering infras- challenges of connecting large scale of solar PV to the power tructure (AMI) industry in Taiwan to establish high system. quality, high efficiency, user-oriented and environment- There have been 981 solar PV applications with the total friendly power system to reduce CO2 emission, increase installed capacity 151 MW to apply for the certificates up to energy efficiency and enhance energy security. October 15, 2010. 452 out of 981 applications have been • Tying in closely with the smart grid developing schedule approved by the MOEA with the total installed capacity of of Taiwan Power Company, integrate the research abili- 69 MW. In fact, the target of 64 MW for developing solar PV ties of industry and academia to establish smart grid and has been reached in 2010 (3). support the power facilities industry in Taiwan. 2.4 Government Policy To address the concerns of • Promote AMI, microgrid, smart home (building) energy the global climate change and energy shortage, Taiwan gov- management system, advanced distribution automation ernment issued the Sustainable Energy Policy Guidelines on four pilot projects by National Science Council (NSC) June 5, 2008. Afterwards, the Energy Conservation and Car- to develop key technologies of smart grid and AMI and bon Dioxide Reduction Action Plan based on the Guidelines ensure the merging of the developed technologies into is approved on September 4, 2008. The policy goals of the the power system in Taiwan will be reliable and feasi- guidelines are as follows: (i) promoting energy usage and ble. production efficiency, (ii) increasing energy usage for value- TPC has been actively promoting smart grid applications. added products, (iii) pursuing low carbon and low pollution Its aim is to make its network “smarter”, or more flexible and energy supply and consumptions, and (iv) reducing depen- efficient in response to changes in electricity demand. TPC’s dence on petrochemical energy and imported energy. smart Grid Vision is to create high quality, high efficiency, Based on the guidelines, the National Energy Conference customer oriented and environment- friendly power grid. The further developed the following four major policies on April roadmap of Taipower’s smart grid, shown in Fig. 5, provided 15–16, 2009. the following four tasks: • Sustaining energy development and establishing energy • Enhancing power grid safety and reliability security for a low carbon society; • Improving generation and dispatch efficiency • Developing energy technology and applying energy con- • Upgrading user’s service quality servation and carbon dioxide reduction technology; • Integrating distribution energy resources • Promoting efficient energy management and setting up In order to actively help customers to improve electric ap- green power and a concentrated non-energy industry; pliance efficiency, TPC also move to establish an AMI system • Designing energy price and an open energy market for in order to boost power consumption efficiency. Test site de- reasonable cost-based rates. ployments and integrations of the AMI and the distribution The renewable energy plays a critical role in this policy. feeder automation systems have been conducted at Taiwan The government also approved the Renewable Energy Devel- Electric Power Research Institute (TEPRI), TPC’s research opment Act in July 8, 2009. Based on the energy policy white arm. Test site descriptions and preliminary progress will be paper published in 2010, the renewable energy as a whole, in- briefly presented. cluding solar, wind, hyrdo, biomass and so on, should reach 3.1 AMI Implementation In order to promote the 8% of electricity generation, and 20% of installed capacity in policy about energy saving and carbon reduction, the resi-

43 IEEJ Journal IA, Vol.1, No.1, 2012 Smart Grid Development in Taiwan（Chia-Chi Chu et al.）

Fig. 5. TPC’s Smart Grid Vision dential AMI played an important role to develop demand re- sponse programs. Due to the fact that 42% of total power consumption in Taiwan was used by 12 million residential consumers and the remaining 58% were utilized by 23,000 industrial high-voltage consumers (the voltage level is higher than 69 kV), Taiwan government planned to first install AMI systems for industrial consumers before 2011 (5). • In the first stage (2009∼2010), the Bureau of Energy (BOE) planned to install 350 smart meters for small scale power user in Taipei and Hsinchu area for testing purposes. The main objectives of 1st stage were to focus on the technique testing, including (i) test the communi- cation technology (ii) define specifications and standard, and (iii) build AMI testing systems. The second stage Fig. 6. TPERI test facilities: the automatic meter test & (2011∼2012) is the preliminary installation stage which inspection platform (top) and the weather test chamber 10 thousand AMI smart meters should be installed and (bottom) should be tested with meter data measurement systems. At this stage, test platform and new pricing fee structure shall be determined. • The third stage (2013∼2015) is the fundamental installa- tion stage in which 1 million meters should be installed around Taiwan, and also introduce and execute new pric- ing fee for residential users. • The final stage (2016∼) plans to install 6 million smart meters with automation system and implement the load management and demand response program. TPERI has set up a test site for supporting the development of AMI technologies. Its main objectives include Fig. 7. Microgrid test field at INER • Developments of power line communication technology • Optical fiber network and power line communications integration • Power conditioning technique for renewable energy • AMI testing • Energy storage systems • Testings of automated distribution equipment system • Development of power electronics facilities maintenance in the branch feeder • Microgrid protection and coordination • Provision the testing of equipment and systems installed • Microgrid system analysis before the field test • Microgrid power quality analysis • Study solutions of equipment and system problem after • Energy management and control installation These technologies will be validated in the following test • System operator training. fields Fig. 6 shows parts of the test facilities in TPERI. • Microgrid demonstration site in Industrial Technology 3.2 Microgrid Research Microgrid is a major re- Research Institute (ITRI) search topic within the aforementioned Smart Grid Strategic • Microgrid experimental site of TEPRI Initiatives. Total of seven pilot projects are launched to de- • Microgrid test field of Institute of Nuclear Energy Re- velop the core technologies: search (INER).

44 IEEJ Journal IA, Vol.1, No.1, 2012 Smart Grid Development in Taiwan（Chia-Chi Chu et al.）

References

( 1 ) 2011 Annual Report of Taiwan Power Company, Taiwan Power Company (2011-4) ( 2 ) http://www.cepd.gov.tw ( 3 ) http://www.moeaboe.gov.tw ( 4 ) 2010 White Papers on the Energy Industry Technologies, Bureau of Energy, Ministry of Economic Affairs, p.161 (2010-4) ( 5 ) Y.S. Huang and S.S. Chen Low: “Voltage AMI Test Site Planning and Future Perspectives”, Technical Report, ITRI (2010)

Chia-Chi Chu (Non-member) received the BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from National Taiwan Univer- sity, Taipei, Taiwan, and the Ph.D. degree in electri- Fig. 8. The Microgrid pilot research testbench of CAPT cal engineering from Cornell University, Ithaca, New at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan York, U.S.A., in 1996. From 1995 to 1996, he has been a member of the technical staff at Avant! Cor- poration, Fremont, CA, USA. From 1996 to 2006, he Before the aforementioned test sites were developed, a pilot was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, research testbench is first built in the Center for Advanced Chang Gung University, Tao-Yuan, Taiwan. Since Power Technologies (CAPT) of Department of Electrical En- 2006, he has been an Associate Professor of Electri- gineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. cal Engineering at National Tsing Hua University, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan. He More than twenty professors from five universities partici- was a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley in 1999. pates in this pilot project and investigates fundamental issues His current research interests include power system stability, FACTS, and Microgrid Control. Dr. Chu was the recipient of the Best Author Award of of the Microgrid. The main tasks include the IEEE 1997 Control of Oscillations and Chaos Conference (COC’97) and • Thrust 1 studies the power generations and energy stor- the 8th international conference on Power Electronics and Drive Systems ages of the Microgrid. (PEDS’2009). • Thrust 2 explores the system protections issues and emergency control. • Faa-Jeng Lin (Non-member) received the Ph.D. degree in electri- Thrust 3 develops a smart energy management simulator cal engineering from National Tsing Hua University, in Microgrid. Taiwan, in 1993. From 2001 to 2003, he was the • Thrust 4 investigates the communication architecture of Chairperson and Professor in the Department of Elec- the Microgrid. trical Engineering, National Dong Hwa University, • Thrust 5 applies the multi-agent technology for smart Hualien, Taiwan. He was Dean of Research and De- velopment and Dean of Academic Affairs from 2003 Microgrid managements and real time control. to 2007 at the same university. Currently, he is Chair The CAPT testbench can operate in the grid-connected mode Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineer- and the islanding mode, which can be supported by either the ing, National Central University, Taiwan. He was the 20 kW motor-generator set or the 10 kW diesel generator. It Chairperson of the Power Engineering Division, National Science Council is equipped with six state-of-the-art digital relays SEL-311 (NSC), Taiwan. He was twice the recipient of the Outstanding Research Award, NSC. He served as the Chairperson of IEEE IE/PELS Taipei Chap- of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL). Various fault ter from 2007 to 2009. Currently He is an Associate Editor, IEEE Trans. scenarios can be performed in this testbench, and the protec- Fuzzy Systems. His research interests include fuzzy and neural network tion schemes can be implemented in the digital relays for val- control theories, nonlinear control theories, AC and ultrasonic motor drives, idation. Power electronics converters can also be connected DSP-based computer control systems, power electronics, renewable energy to this testbench for testing their grid-connected and island- resources and smart grid. ing capabilities. The operation of converters under fault and their low voltage ride-through capabilities can be verified. Po-Tai Cheng (Member) received the B.S. degree from National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan in 1990 4. Summary and Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin, The smart grid technology will play a critical role in our Madison, WI, USA in 1999. He is currently a Profes- ffi sor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Na- goal of achieving high energy e ciency, CO2 reduction, and tional Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. He is the energy security for a sustainable future. This also presents an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Power a great opportunity for Taiwan’s information technology in- Electronics and IEEE Transactions on Industry Ap- dustries and power conversion industries, and the utility to plications. His research interests include power qual- participate in this evolution process. By the synergy of the ity issues, high power converters, power electronics technologies for smart grid and microgrid. government, industries, academic and research institutions, indigenous smart grid technologies will power Taiwan’s fu- ture and make contributions to the global community.

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