1. The achievements of domestic and foreign low-carbon cities
To mitigate the impact of global climate change, international major cities simultaneously promote national energy saving and carbon reduction strategies, the concept of promoting low-carbon and sustainable homes. In the meantime, the government assimilated the city energy saving and carbon reduction to policy planning. Through the opened competition, our country selected four cities (New Taipei City, Taichung City, Tainan City and Ilan County) from different districts for the demonstration of the low-carbon cities. Further, Kinmen County and Penghu County were assigned for the low-carbon islands by Executive Yuan. Our team organized the current executed situation from the above four low-carbon demonstrative cities and a low-carbon island, Penghu County. We will elaborate the background information, carbon reduction target, carbon reduction strategy and executed result of these cities. In the other hand, we also collected international cities which took integrative low-carbon measures to do the case introduction. The cities included Somes Island in Demark, Miyako Island in Japan, Melbourne, Toronto, Rotterdam, Bonai Island in Netherlands and San Francisco, etc. These case introductions will illustrate the background information, reduction target, low-carbon and adjustment strategies, and the measures executed results, etc.
2. Low carbon island evaluation
To increase the operation efficiency of “Kinmen low-carbon promoting team”, we designed project scheduled progress tracking and rating system for six plans of Kinmen low-carbon Island. The main concepts are to track the achieved percentage of project scheduled progress, the changing of project date, the expected works and results. There are 14 works have been finished, 14 work projects in line with the planning progress of works, but there are 6 work items belonging to backward scenario. Moreover, according to the projects working situation and progress of achievement of different departments, we assisted Kinmen County Environmental Protection Agency held the business association meeting of Kinmen low-carbon homes promoting teams more than three times.
In the other hand, we assisted Kinmen County with developing the formulation of carbon reduction and sequestration. We concluded ten kinds of formulas of the solar photovoltaic systems, small wind power systems, energy saving lamps, resource recovery, recycling water / water-saving, low-pollution vehicles, green/ flowerbeds carbon sequestration, tree planting carbon sequestration, solar hot water systems, energy efficient appliances and so forth. According to the calculation and analytic results, the amount of the total carbon reduction and sequestration of low-carbon island project are 3,277.87 tons and 837.2 tons, respectively.
Moreover, we invited Scholars and experts to participate 4 conferences which are in connection with the execution benefit of Kinmen low-carbon island project. Through these conferences, our team provided some help for executing the projects. In the meanwhile, we also established communication platforms for government, civil society and experts to efficiently assist localities with improving the problem they faced when they executed the Kinmen low-carbon strategies. In addition, we helped Kinmen County Environmental Protection Agency to develop the specific indicators of carbon reduction and the drafts which related to sustainable low-carbon projects. We expected the indicators and drafts can be the standard of achieved percentage of project scheduled progress, the evaluation of target achieved rate and the analysis of carbon reduction benefit.
3. Low Carbon Community Counseling Certification
Based on the construction of low-carbon city, EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) extended the concept of developing sustainable society and promoted the programs of sustainable low-carbon homes. EPA invited county and city governments to consult the sustainable low-carbon homes promoting plan and pushed them to establish the office to promote the plan. Additionally, EAP actively promoted sustainable low-carbon homes appraisal certification of the country and create an authentication system which is suitable for the country. Therefore, we can build the connection between localities and EPA; then, we can also integrate the implementation of the central and local governments.This project consulted the current situation of EPA’s sustainable low-carbon homes appraisal certification. We helped 17 villages to get the nominated certification and total amount of 21 villages to investigate the current situation and organize the information. In the other hand, we continuously consulted the communities which have the potential to get the certification. We completed the application of the certification of Chinshui district, Chusha district and Chiunglin district this year.
Besides, after the consultation and investigation of the communities, our team chose 6 potential low-carbon communities according to each community’s characteristics. We promote many sustainable low-carbon programs in these communities such as promoting the usage of indoor energy saving lights, the usage of energy saving lights in temple, the recycle and reuse of leftover, second hand product market and changing platform, restore and reuse of the rain, effluent recycling and so forth. After the review of relevant technical and advisory subcommittee, we can log into a sustainable and low-carbon website to complete the establishment of the certification project. Through the total six promoting programs, we estimated annual savings of electricity consumption are 4,847 kWh / year as well as water-saving are 3,040m3 / years.
4. Promoting consultation of energy saving and improvement measures
With the Kinmen County became a popular tourist attraction, the impact of hotel and retail industries on the environment and resource consumption has increased significantly. In order to assist local industry with energy saving and carbon reduction, our team has helped 22 trades to get the low-carbon certification according to Kinmen EPA’s low-carbon consulting plan. There are nine trades who made applications for grants, mainly to the energy-saving lamps changing. We estimated annual savings of electricity consumption are 2,517.3 kWh as well as carbon reduction are 1,762.2 kg CO2e.
On the other hand, in the view of Kinmen County, low-carbon Island, has become the focus of future development, this project also assist the public building energy-saving demonstration and campus energy conservation diagnosis. Therefore, we can fulfill the energy-saving improvement measures and increase the efficiency of energy using policies. We, LGET, served as the consulting team of campus energy conservation diagnosis. We completed the diagnosis of national Kinmen agricultural ＆ industrial vocational senior high school, Chung-Cheng elementary school, Chin-Ting elementary school and Shian-An elementary school (include Hsiao-Hu-An branch) before the end of May. Additionally, we assisted schools with energy efficiency improvement projects, improvement of the circuit, and the installation of lighting changing inverter and other measures. We estimated annual savings of electricity consumption are 44,110.4 kWh as well as carbon reduction are 30,877.3 kg CO2e.
Moreover, this project also took Kinmen County EPA and the low-carbon community hall for the object to build power monitoring facilities and monitor the electricity consumption of construction. Since May 26 to 28, we completed the meter installation and have been continuously monitored for about six months. The results showed that the current EPA’s electricity consumption is normal, but there is still a room for improvement. We recommend that the next stage can be installed automatic energy-saving control such as body sensors or detectors and so forth. Through the cloud power monitoring system, we can analysis the monitoring data and make the adjustment of the load. These data can provide the internal managers in energy management; also, the building can be used as energy conservation education and advocacy.
5. Green collar talent and low carbon advocacy activities
To enhance people’s attention on Kinmen low-carbon Island, energy saving and carbon reduction and in-depth understand the knowledge of the project which promoting low-carbon energy-saving, our team assisted Kinmen County Environmental Protection Agency with holding 3 sessions of low-carbon advocacy activities and 1 session of low-carbon life camp. We anticipated passing the sustainable low-carbon homes policy through these activities and training professional people with environmental knowledge. On the other hand, our team arranged an observed learning activity which was stretch over the country on June 23 and 24. Through this learning activity, other cities shared the practices, ideas and mode of operation with each other. Consequently, the board of Kinmen County government will have a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages by developing the low-carbon policies.
6. Other low carbon related tasks
To co-operate with the requirement of Kinmen County Environmental Protection Agency, our team will continuously execute the operation of sustainable low-carbon homes and the result management and checking system. Also, we assisted EPA with clarifying the environmental impact which was generated by the process of tourism activity in Kinmen. Through the survey’s analysis, we can estimate every tourist in transportation and accommodation process generated per capita greenhouse gas emissions were 6.57 and 3.54 kg CO2e. On the other hand, we help EPA to build energy-saving appliances subsidy checking system and elaborate "Kinmen County saving diagnostic counseling appliances". During project execution period, we co-operate with attending every low-carbon related meeting, training course and seminar.