In response to the needs and trends of international energy conservation and carbon emission reduction, the improvement of energy efficiency and the promotion of the development in energy-saving related industries have become an important part of energy policies and global energy markets in various countries. Its potential for growth and development has also drawn international attention.
According to the report of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2017, the current global market for energy-efficient investments, the ESCO markets, and their number of employment are all in the trend of increasing year by year significianly. In view of the current domestic and international trends have become a potentially favorable growth environment to promote and develope Taiwan’s ESCO industry. Taiwan also implemented various relevant policies to respond the global climate change and the international trend of pursuing sustainable development, they included the promulgation of the “Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act” and the promotion of new energy policy of “2025 Non-nuclear Homeland,” as well as amendments to the “Electricity Act” and so on.
At the same time, Taiwan’s government has also made a great efforts in promoting and assisting the development of the ESCO industry. However, because the ESCO industry is a cross-cutting energy-saving technology application and the integrated emerging industry, and compared to the advanced countries, enterprises in Taiwan’s ESCO industry are relatively small-scale. The entry barriers of the capital and market access led to the constraints of Taiwan’s ESCO export. Thus, it needs to provide analysis and advice on important international information of ESCO industry so as to assist the development and export of the Taiwan’s ESCO industry.
Accordingly, this project mainly focuses on two major themes: (i) the study of international ESCO industry, (ii) the maintenance of Taiwan’s ESCO export exchange network; and four research tasks in addition to the publication of the project findings: (i) to study developmental strategies of foreign ESCO industries, (ii) to evaluate Taiwan’s ESCO industrial export capability, (iii) to collect vital export information for Taiwan’s ESCO industry, and (iv) to study ESCO overseas industrial finance.
In order to fulfill four major tasks as above, first, this project compares and analyzes market situation, ESCO promoting policies and their effects in Germany, Britain, and Singapore, and tries to draft Taiwan’s ESCO promoting strategies; secondly, due to the potential export value for Taiwan’s ESCO companies, this project collects and analyzes ESCO import regulations, energy efficiency policies, and market information in the Philippines and Vietnam; thirdly, this project collects information of the ESCO regulations and ESCO business environment in Thailand, Malaysia, and New Zealand; finally, this project analyze several finance resources, which provide by the government, commercial banks and international energy efficiency investment funds and companies, and provides certain industrial export finance suggestions according to the results of project investigation.