Taichung is dedicated in facilitating to become a low carbon city. Hua Nan Commercial Bank is issuing NT$22 billion of special project loan to echo to the green power technology industrial development. The loan is planned for supporting the local companies in Taichung to procure (build) the solar power equipment and upgrade their industrial heating equipments with the special loan. Mayor Chia-lung Lin today (24th) signed the memorandum of understanding with the Chairman of Hua Nan Commercial Bank Dong-jay Wu and said, the City Government is encouraging the industries to replace the heating equipment with the power supply of natural gas. However, the equipment renew will need budget support so the special project loan is coming「right in time」. The loan will expedite the process and benefit to the improvement of air pollution so all the related companies are welcome to ask for it.

Today, Economic Development Bureau, Taichung City Government, conducted the signature ceremony of 「Hua Nan Commercial Bank-loan for the green power industry and industrial heating equipment upgrade project- letter of intent, memorandum of understanding」; Mayor Lin was accompanied by the Director of Economic Development Bureau Yao-ji Lu, and Chairman of Hua Nan Commercial Bank Dong-jay Wu was present as well to sign the MOU to show the determination of facilitating Taichung to become a low carbon city. Vice chairman of Hua Nan Commercial Bank Ji-yen Lin, Deputy general manager of Small and Medium Enterprise Credit Guarantee Fund of Taiwan, Ching-lien Tu and the Representatives from divisions of Hua Nan Commercial Bank were all there to witness the signature.

Mayor Lin said, Taichung got very good sunshine condition with some other plenty of geographic resources like Taichung Port and coast line area. It’s a good place to develop the solar photovoltaic power and offshore wind power. The central government has dedicated to facilitate the green power development and encourage the public institutes to take the initiatives so the City Government has set up the solar photovoltaic power system in the roofs of the government governed building to make the most of the unused spaces. Also, Taichung is the first city to provide the subsidy to assist the enterprises to upgrade the heating equipments and change the power supply of the boilers. And now, there is one more action with the loan for the green power industry and industrial heating equipment upgrade project, it’s expected to drive the people in private sectors to facilitate the green power development.

Mayor Lin pointed out, the City Government is fully promoting the green power development and it will help to resolve the issues of air pollutions. The major factors lead to the air pollutions in Taichung, one half of them are from Taichung Power Plant and the other half are from the factories heating the boilers with heavy oil. As the City Government is facilitating the power supply change from oil to natural gas, not only the subsidy is provided but also some other strategies are applied at the same time to improve the air pollution problem universally.

Mayor Lin addressed, the natural gas usage will need the pipelines support so it can reduce the air pollution due to combustion of the oil and it’s relatively safer with high efficiency. Since the City Government is aggressively facilitating the power supply change and air pollution improvement, the special project loan will be a helper to call every company to make the use for themselves. Meanwhile, we’d like to appreciate Hua Nan Commercial Bank and Small and Medium Enterprise Credit Guarantee Fund of Taiwan to take the company social responsibility to loan for the green power industry with NT$20 billion and industrial heating equipments upgrade with NT$2 billion of special project loan to put the great efforts on the development of green power and low carbon city.

Chairman Wu of Hua Nan Commercial Bank said, Taichung is the important city of Taiwan precision machinery industry; there’re many precision machinery companies in this region. Recently, the City Government has leveraged the good nature of the sunshine to aggressively develop the solar photovoltaic power in the industrial park so there are many outstanding achievements accumulated by now, the biggest roof types solar power plants located in the Central Taiwan Science Park. Hua Nan Commercial Bank is providing the special project loan to assist Taichung to develop the solar photovoltaic and echo to the government green power technology industrial policy.

Chairman Wu has also mentioned, Hua Nan Commercial Bank has firstly taken the lead to introduce the「Loan for industrial heating equipment upgrade project」 to assist the local companies to obtain the special loan to upgrade the heating equipment and the willingness of the companies for the boiler replacement. This project will facilitate the sustainability of local industry and become the leading indicator of the country as a role model.

The officer of Economic Development Bureau said, Executive Yuan anticipates to achieve the goal of nuclear free homeland by 2025. From 2017 to 2024, the solar photovoltaic settings should achieve 20GW and the wind power settings should achieve 4.2GW. Taichung City Government will base on the「Taichung self management articles of low carbon city」to request the major power users to complete the solar photovoltaic power, wind power and some other green power settings to achieve more than 10% of the contracted capacity for facilitating the use of recycled energy.

In order to improve the air quality in Taichung, the City Government has set the「Policy of Taichung City Government facilitated natural gas subsidy for replacing the industrial heating equipments」on 9th September, 2015, and accepted the subsidy requests from 15th September, 2015. Later in 2017, the requirements for subsidy requests have been revised, the upper limit of the subsidy was raised to NT$500 thousand from NT$300 thousand and the requirements for subsidy requests were relaxed to encourage the enterprises to raise the request. The total requested subsidies in 2017 have accumulated to NT$11 million so the budget for 2018 has been raised to NT$30 million. The special project loan provided by Hua Nan Commercial Bank will be very helpful for the companies to relieve their pressure on fundraising and attract them to replace the boilers.

Director of Economic Development Bureau Yao-ji Lu has mentioned further, the revised subsidy in 2017 has raised the amount of the subsidy and 112 enterprises have completed the replacement by now with the paid subsidies of NT$35 million. The approved subsidies for 24 companies have accumulated to more than NT$10 million by now this year. Later on, more budget will be planned to replace and renew the old boilers to deal with the air pollution issues comprehensively.

In order to support the goal to accomplish nuclear free homeland by 2025, the City Government encourages the private sector to set up the solar photovoltaic power system. NT$5.7 million of budget was planned for this year to support the household solar power plate with the subsidy of NT$18 thousand per KW and each case of subsidy upper limit will be NT$300 thousand. Any request for the self-used solar photovoltaic power system is welcome and the subsidy may increase by the performance in the future.

This year, we’ve aligned with Ministry of Economic Affairs to implement the policy of「green power roof, everybody move」; the tender notice for the business merchant selection in the demonstration area was posted on 12th July and the tender will close on 6th August. The tender related documents have been published on the official website of Economic Development Bureau, all the solar photovoltaic system companies are welcome to bid the tender. If your company is set in Taichung, and you would like to procure (build) the solar power equipment and upgrade the boilers, please contact any division of Hua Nan Commercial Bank in Taichung for more information.