As an important member of the international community with a significant industrial base and reliance on international trade, Taiwan has a key role to play in tackling climate change.

Although responsible for less than 1% of the world’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, the country was the 22nd largest emitter in 2020 and is striving to achieve Net Zero by 2050.

To support this agenda, the Taiwan Net Zero Pathways project was commissioned by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) – administered by the British Office Taipei – and Taiwan’s Bureau of Energy (BoE) – supported by a local team from the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).

The project sought to produce Net Zero Scenarios for Taiwan and make policy suggestions to support its green transition, split into four broad categories: 1) Demand reduction 2) Fuel/vector switching, 3) Renewable energy generation, and 4) Negative emissions.

To deliver scenarios for Taiwan, Energy Systems Catapult reconfigured our internationally peer-reviewed in-house Energy System Modelling Environment (ESME) tool – a policy neutral, least-cost optimisation model designed to explore technology options for a carbon-constrained energy system, subject to additional constraints, for instance around energy security and peak energy demand.

Our approach included high-level activities, such as:

• Analyses of the Taiwanese energy system, energy supply, demand, and the power system to identify the possible applications and deployments
• Consideration of   key   indicators such   as   such   as   technology   readiness   level, cost   competitiveness, Taiwan’s natural resources, regulations and policy ecosystem, market, and socio-environmental impacts
• Further development of three scenarios based on future realistic pathways for the Taiwanese energy system to 2050, including different mixes of technologies and behaviours applicable to Taiwan
• Considerations and assumptions relating to key sectors such as Transport, Electricity, Industry and Buildings

Through Energy Systems Catapult’s modelling we produced insight across three main scenarios out to 2050:

• TEC – which includes optimistic assumptions on the technology innovation axis, but less optimistic about the availability of societal changes.
• SOC – which makes the opposite assumptions around technology innovation and societal change.
• BAL – which takes a balanced set of assumptions somewhere between TEC and SOC.

Across the three scenarios, using our modelling we produced projections on the below to inform a high-level road map:

• Sectoral emissions across hydrogen, transports, buildings, electricity, industry and DACC.
• Annual primary resource consumption
• Energy use and generation across electricity, industry and transport (included expected uptake of EVs)
• Hydrogen production
• Estimated cost of decarbonisation

Key insights derived:

• Industrial decarbonisation is critical and contributes the highest residual emissions in 2050 in all scenarios.
• Bioenergy, if available and sustainable, provides a particularly useful offset.
• Direct air capture is utilised extensively.
• Wind, solar power, storage and CCS are all critical technologies and should all be actively pursued,
• Imports of hydrogen will play a role in – near-term and long-term.
• Transportation transitions to essentially zero emissions in the long term.

Digital Engineering has developed technology that can precisely monitor the impact of weather on the condition of electricity network overhead lines, allowing network operators to invest in maintenance and upgrades in a far more efficient way.

A wide range of environmental conditions, especially wind, are known to impact the condition of overhead lines (OHL), conductors and fittings, influencing both their asset life and the lines’ dynamic power rating.

Digital Engineering uses weather modelling software and analysis to help electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure owners optimise their asset management strategies, increase system reliability and protect investment.

At the time of engaging with us, Digital Engineering were at a proof-of-concept stage and accessed our support to develop their route to market, partnerships, and business model.

Watch the video case study:

Energy Launchpad & International supported Digital Engineering with the following offerings to help optimise, develop and scale-up:

• Digital Energy Fitness Assessment: To measure their digital maturity, benchmark their progress against the wider sector and make informed decisions about their future development plan.
• Digital and Data: Providing recommendations on streamlining their front-end operations (e.g. recommendations to improve the dashboard) and backend operation (e.g. data management and storage options) .
• Partnerships: Introducing them to potential research and business partners (e.g. distribution network operators, sensors manufacturers etc.)
• International Market Study

The Impact for Digital Engineering included:

• Support to produce and test a prototype/demo version of their Asset Health software, as part of a collaborative Networks Innovation Allowance bid.
• Development of a cloud-based data architecture enabling them to scale their data services while maintaining low data storage costs for their clients.
• Gaining new insights through conducting a UK and EU market studies and a virtual mission to India, which helped them to understand the business and regulatory environments; and better connect with network operators and potential supply chain partners.

Thailand is an advanced market in terms of recognising the importance of smart energy systems, which presents an opportunity for UK-Thai collaboration.

Energy Launchpad International carried out a market deep dive into Thailand and identified ambitious policies for electrification of transport and the creation of smart cities and power networks. The Thailand government had recently announced even more ambitious energy policies:

• Investing £4.9bn over the next 15 years in smart grids in a bid to become a regional hub for electric vehicles.
• Thailand plans to roll out 1.2m EVs by 2036.

There are early signs of international investment aimed at capitalising on Thailand’s position as an automotive hub in Southeast Asia.

Eight UK innovators joined a virtual mission to Thailand in 2020-21:

• BlockDox – proptech company solving complex problems using artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) – helping organisations with large real estate portfolios or public transport operators to exceed sustainability goals, reduce wastage, increase profitability and improve space use.
• Entrust Microgrid – build smart grid systems for the built environment, offering high efficiency, low cost and reliable microgrid systems with renewable energy and energy storage.
• GreenEnco – technical consultancy and engineering service provider in solar, energy storage and electric vehicle charging infrastructure projects.
• GridDuck – is a low-cost energy management system utilising wireless hardware, an online dashboard and an API. Saving energy for businesses and buildings by consumption monitoring and analysis, remote control and automation.
• Noos Energy – offer a data, analytics and artificial intelligence platform that powers better real-time procurement, demand management and dynamic pricing decisions.
• OXTO Energy – innovative energy storage company helping to stabilise renewable electricity systems safely, at-scale and low-cost.
• Store Electric – facilitate the growing hydrogen economy with cost-effective hydrogen production and storage, and enabling renewables to power the grid with long-duration, large-scale electricity storage.
• Telensa – wireless smart city applications for smart lighting, helping cities around the world save energy, work smarter and deliver more joined-up services for their citizens.

Seven UK innovators joined a virtual mission to Thailand in 2021-22: