The ECCT was a supporting organiser and participant in the 2024 EU-Taiwan Investment Partnership Forum and B2B matchmaking on the green transition, hosted by the European Economic & Trade Office in cooperation with EU member states representative offices in Taiwan, the Taiwan International Trade Administration (TITA, under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, MOEA), the Energy Administration (EA, MOEA), Industrial Development Administration (IDA, MOEA), Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), Green Energy and Sustainability Alliance (GESA), a SEMI Industry Group. The half-day forum began with opening remarks by Lutz Guellner, Head of the European Economic & Trade Office; Lee Chun-li, Deputy Director-General of the EA and ECCT Chairman Giuseppe Izzo. This was followed by a keynote speech by Nelson Chang, Chairman of TCC Group Holdings (formerly known as Taiwan Cement Corporation) and a series of presentations on the topic “Empowering the future: Innovations and collaborations in renewable energy generation, energy saving and carbon reduction technologies”.

In his presentation Nelson Chang spoke about his company’s green transformation strategy in Europe. Since buildings account for a sizeable portion of carbon emissions, including their use of carbon intensive materials like cement, their construction and operation, making buildings less carbon intensive and more energy efficient will play a significant role in cutting overall carbon emissions globally. TCC is investing in low carbon cement facilities in Portugal and Africa. The company has pioneered the production of ultra-low carbon cement using calcined clay as a substitute for clinker. As of 2023, 45% of the company’s profits come from its low-carbon cement operations in Europe. TCC's market share in Taiwan is 32%, 16% in Turkey, and over 50% in Portugal.

In his presentation, Peter Brouwer, Market Developer, Renewable Energy for Bronkhorst, spoke about the potential and challenges of green hydrogen (hydrogen produced using renewable energy). He noted that while there was strong government support for developing green hydrogen, current interim goals are overly ambitious given the constraints in terms of costs and capacity buildout. He went on to explain the technical process for electrolysers and his company’s expertise in providing controllers.

In his presentation, Chiu Chiu-pin, General Manager of Energy Business for Wartsilla, spoke about the potential of hydrogen in power plants. His company has developed plants that can run on a mix of natural gas and hydrogen. The ultimate goal is to run plants entirely on green hydrogen but this will not be feasible until there is a significant scale up in the production of green hydrogen.

In his presentation, Van Hoang, Chairman and CEO of Baseload Power Taiwan, spoke about the potential for geothermal energy in Taiwan and globally. The company already has eight geothermal power plants around the world but is still in the exploratory stage in Taiwan. The advantage of geothermal power plants is that they have a relatively small footprint and can produce both heat and electricity, which makes them useful for supplying both power and heat for businesses like greenhouses, food processing and other agricultural uses, among many others. Minerals like silica can also be extracted during the process of producing power from mineral rich geothermal streams.

In his presentation, Martin Edlund, CEO of Minestro, introduced a novel device designed by his company to harness wave power. The device, named “Dragon” resembles a small aeroplane that is tethered to the ocean floor and generates electricity from tidal streams and ocean currents similar to the way a kite flies in the wind. The wing of the Dragon uses the hydrodynamic lift force created by the underwater current to move. With an onboard control system, the Dragon is autonomously steered in a predetermined figure-of-eight trajectory, pulling the turbine through the water at a water flow several times higher than the actual stream speed. The turbine shaft turns the generator which outputs electricity to the grid via a power cable in the tether and a seabed umbilical to the shore. According to the speaker, the current versions of the Dragon (1.2MW) could be scaled up in size to up to 3-4MW in future. Given that they are light-weight, they are much easier to move and deploy than wind turbines. Also, since they operate in deep water, they don’t interfere with other marine activities and, if located in deep enough water would not be affected by turbulence on the ocean surface from typhoons.

In his presentation, Dieter Van Ryckeghem, Project Manager of Vyncke NV, introduced his company’s waste to power plants, which can run on around 100 different types of waste materials, such as rice husks, straw and other agricultural waste and even coffee grounds. Ashes from the burnt waste of some materials can also be valuable as a type of fertiliser.

In his presentation, Bernd Dorrestein, Commercial & Legal Manager for IX Renewable spoke about the potential for floating offshore wind energy.

In his presentation, Dirk Schelkens, Vice President of the Belgian Offshore Cluster, gave an overview of wind energy deployment in Belgium.

In his presentation, Roger Chen, Country Manager of Enel X Taiwan, introduced the concept of virtual power plants, whereby networks of small energy-producing or storage devices, like solar panels and batteries, are pooled together to serve the electricity grid. With their participants' approval, their energy can be tapped by utilities during times of high demand or can be reserved for later use. This is mutually beneficial to both parties as the utility has an energy resource to draw on to maintain grid stability while owners of storage devices earn revenue from selling their power.

In his presentation, Mantas Kazlauskas, Commercial Director of EPSO-G (a holding company owned by the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Lithuania), introduced Lithuania’s green transition plans. He demonstrated how Lithuania has already made rapid progress towards transitioning to renewable energy (of various types) and continues to advance towards net zero.

The forum concluded with a panel discussion moderated by Jules Chuang, Co-Chair of the ECCT’s Energy & Environment committee.