The Taiwan Green Productivity Foundation (TGPF), located on Baoqiao Road in Xindian, Taipei County, is home to an unusual institution-Taiwan's first carbon reduction clinic. The 10 "doctors" who work at the clinic specialize in treating one of the ills of civilization: energy waste in commercial and residential high-rises.

Created by TGPF at the behest of the Taipei County Environmental Protection Bureau, the clinic exists to provide free energy-conservation consultations for the purpose of building a low-carbon society. Enthusiastically received by the public since it opened last year, the clinic's popularity stems in part from the fact that it arranges for "patients" to consult with experts in six fields with just a single appointment, addressing their building's electrical, ventilation, lighting, water use, recycling, and heat exposure problems simultaneously.

The green-collar workers diagnosing the energy ills of Taiwan's communities and businesses are at the forefront of environmental protection efforts. In the photo, ITRI's Energy Conservation Vanguard is checking out a cooling tower belonging to the operator of a hot spring spa.

It starts with the power bill

The carbon doctors begin their diagnosis by looking at a patient's "medical record": the building's power bill.

"Many people don't realize that there's an art to reading a power bill," says Lin Kuan-chia, one of TGPF's managers. He explains that TaiPower uses multiple formulas to calculate its customers' electrical bills. A typical households pays a per-unit rate multiplied by the number of units on the meter. In this case, the company makes no adjustments for peak consumption periods. That is, households simply pay for what they use regardless of when they use it. Therefore, for the public at large, saving power simply means remembering to turn off lights and unplug electronics that aren't in use. But the company's "contract customers," which include commercial high-rises, hospitals, schools, factories, and the communal facilities in multiunit residential high-rises, are subject to three different rates-peak, off-peak, and semi-peak. Their bills contain other mysterious figures as well.

For example, when a developer completes construction of a commercial high-rise, it estimates the building's electricity consumption and enters into a contract with TaiPower on that basis. TaiPower then assigns the building a "contract volume," effectively a monthly quota, and calculates a monthly "power factor." Each month contract customers pay a base rate (contract volume times unit price), a variable rate, and an overage fee if they exceed their volume. TaiPower also gives contract clients a discount if their power factor-a measure of their efficiency of power use-exceeds 85%. It charges them the full rate for their metered consumption if their power factor is below 85%. These various adjustments determine the amount that contract customers pay each month.

While a number of factors, including tenants moving in and out, and the closure of shared facilities (such as gyms), can change the contract volume, most contract clients don't understand this figure's importance and passively accept TaiPower's number.

Last September, the carbon reduction clinic helped the Banqiao branch of Taipei County Hospital with an energy audit. By entering the hospital's power bills for the previous year into a computer, the clinic generated a lower contract volume figure for the hospital, submitted an application to change the contract volume to TaiPower, and succeeded in reducing the following month's power bill by NT$600,000. Already booking significant savings at no cost to itself, the hospital could save a further NT$260,000 on its power bill by investing a few tens of thousands of NT dollars in swapping out its old capacitor banks to increase its power factor.

Energy efficient, long lasting LEDs are expected to be the dominant source of lighting in the 21st Century. Since 2008, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has been helping local governments pay to convert their traffic lights to LEDs.

Green production on the rise

After examining a patient's history, the carbon doctors make a "house call." Two or three spend about half a day examining the building's public areas-its rooftop water towers, stairwells, elevators, underground parking garage, etc.-looking for indications that energy is being wasted. Once they've completed their evaluation, the doctors write up their diagnosis and deliver it to the client.

Last year, the clinic investigated 50 buildings in Taipei County, including 35 residential high-rises, three office buildings, four schools, five government structures, and three temples. If its recommendations are fully implemented, they will save 6.5 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and NT$24.71 million annually.

Since TGPF only diagnoses problems, patients needing to replace outdated electrical equipment must turn to the emerging energy services industry for treatment.

The energy services industry first appeared in the United States during the global oil crisis of 1973, when US businesses began thinking about how to reduce their ever-increasing energy costs. Texas' Time Energy, which designed an automated timer for light fixtures, was one of the first companies in this sector. But Time Energy found that many businesses were skeptical about the effectiveness of its approach to energy conservation. Its solution was to first install its devices, then allow its customers to pay for them out of their savings on their electric bills. Over the years, this has become the standard way of doing business in the energy-tech sector.

Energy services providers saw business slow when the energy crisis eased in the 1980s, then pick up again in the 1990s as a result of two executive orders from the Clinton administration, one each in 1994 and 1999. These orders, which mandated that federal buildings cut their energy consumption by 20% per square meter by 2005 and by 25% by 2010, spurred growth in the energy efficiency and renewable energy industries. In fact, the US's more than 500,000 federal buildings and laboratories became the energy services industry's largest market, worth an estimated US$2.9 billion annually.

Here in Taiwan, the industry has developed more slowly. When the Taiwan Energy Service Association (TESA) was founded in 2005, it had only 30 members, most of which were sellers of chilled-water systems, air conditioners, and lighting equipment that were seeking to move into a new field. Interestingly, the current recession has been a boon to local energy service providers. Taiwan's export-dependent manufacturers have been suffering from reduced order volumes since the recession got underway. Unable to grow revenues, they have instead turned to cost cutting measures, energy conservation among them. As a result, local energy service providers have seen their ranks double to 69 firms and their sales grow from NT$370 million in 2005 to NT$2.2 billion in 2008.

In 2007 the Ministry of the Interior awarded the Beitou branch of the Taipei Public Library a green building award for its use of roof-mounted solar panels (which can generate up to 16 kilowatts of power), rainwater collection tanks (which provide water for landscaped areas), and deep balconies and vertical blinds (which help keep the building's interior cool).

Green lighting has its day

Energy services companies analyze energy usage, estimate benefits, negotiate contracts, purchase equipment, subcontract work, and oversee projects. The concept underlying the business is simple, but the technical processes can be complicated. The work takes an average of 18 months, with the most immediate energy savings usually coming via lighting improvements.

Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb in 1878, in effect shining a light on humanity. In the 130-plus years since, ever more advanced lighting technologies, from incandescent and mercury-vapor bulbs to halogens, fluorescents, and LEDs, have kept our skyscrapers lit like kaleidoscopes throughout the night.

But as National Cheng Kung University professor of architecture Lin Hsien-te wrote in his book Light Pollution, the light radiating from skyscrapers at night is an environmental nightmare. In addition to confusing tens of thousands of migrating birds, causing many to die in collisions with buildings, the light has also proved deadly to phototropic animals and insects. For example, it causes male tree frogs to cease calling, reducing the number of females that find mates and placing the species at risk of extinction. Growth cycles in roadside rice paddies are also often disturbed by street lighting, lengthening the time it takes for the rice to reach maturity and sometimes even causing it to fail to produce seed.

When a movement to turn off lights late at night got its start in Chicago in 2003, many building owners agreed to do so from 11 p.m. to dawn during the five months in spring and fall in which birds migrate. Doing so has saved the lives of thousands of migratory birds.

According to the International Energy Agency and Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), indoor lighting accounts for 19% of electricity consumption worldwide and about 16% in Taiwan. The use of durable, reliable, high-efficiency lighting equipment could lower these figures very quickly.

Generally speaking, traditional incandescent bulbs work by running electrical current through a filament, using the filament's high temperature to generate continuous spectrum radiation. As a result, incandescent bulbs are incredibly inefficient. Only about 15% of the energy they consume generates light. The rest is wasted as heat. In contrast, typical "energy-saving bulbs" are about 50% efficient, and LEDs hit 70%.

Since 2006, several thousand convenience stores around Taiwan have joined efforts to voluntarily reduce energy consumption. These stores are now acting to preserve the global environment through measures such as cutting their outdoor lighting by half at night and turning their air-conditioners up to 26° Celsius.

Saving energy matters

Most office buildings use fluorescent light fixtures containing three to four long tubular bulbs each. The bulbs are designated T5, T6, T8, etc with the T indicating that the bulb is tubular, and the number indicating the bulb's diameter in eighths of an inch. Basically, the narrower the tube, the less energy it consumes, the less mercury it contains, and the higher its efficiency. T5 bulbs, for example, are as much as 89% efficient. In addition to being the most efficient of the fluorescents, T5 bulbs have a number of other advantages: they use low-frequency ballasts that provide steady, virtually flicker-free light; have an average life of 15,000 hours; and are unlikely to cause eye strain or otherwise impair vision.

Light fixtures come in a bewildering array of sizes and shapes, but Lin says you really need only keep a few basic principles in mind: "Long is better than short; straight is better than curved; thin is better than thick; exposed is better than shaded."

An estimated one-third of European street lights and roughly 60% of Taiwanese street lights still use low-efficiency mercury lamps. Some 75% of Europe's office lighting and 90% of Taiwan's stilll does not use the most energy-efficient options (LED and T5 bulbs). But the European Union has banned the production and importation of traditional incandescent bulbs from September 2009. It hopes to phase them out entirely by 2012.

ITRI estimates that replacing all Taiwan's energy-wasting light fixtures with efficient ones would save NT$12.6 billion per year in electricity costs, an amount equivalent to 3.7 million tons of CO2, 11.71 million barrels of oil, or half the annual output of a nuclear power plant.

But many people are hesitating because incandescent bulbs are cheap, and newer, more efficient bulbs cost many times as much. LED lamps, which many expect to become mainstream in the 21st century, are also plagued by price and quality issues. Replacing traditional bulbs with more efficient ones is going to be difficult in the near term unless the government steps in with subsidies or policy incentives.

Last year, the Taipei County Environmental Protection Bureau awarded 100 neighborhoods subsidies of NT$20,000 each to replace energy-wasting lights, reducing those neighborhoods' energy costs by an estimated NT$5.58 million. It expanded the program to 500 neighborhoods this year, routing interested communities' applications through the Carbon Reduction Clinic.

Resort hotels use a tremendous amount of energy, and have a similarly great potential to save energy. They can, for example, cut their chandeliers' power consumption in half by replacing old incandescents with new energy-saving bulbs.

Buy now, pay later

While typical homes and businesses have only limited scope for conserving energy, big energy consumers, such as those in the service and manufacturing sectors, can really benefit from a professional evaluation.

According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs' Bureau of Energy, the energy consumption of Taiwan's service sector increased by an average of 4.2% per annum from 2001 to 2006, faster than the manufacturing sector's 3.7% annual increase. This figure has made the convenience stores located on virtually every corner targets for consultations.

In 2006, the Bureau of Energy reached a voluntary energy conservation agreement with five convenience store chains, including 7-Eleven, FamilyMart, and HiLife, which together have some 8,126 outlets in Taiwan. Under the agreement, the stores will keep their signs and outdoor lighting off during the day, reduce their outdoor lighting by half at night, replace their ceiling lights with energy-saving T5 fixtures, set their thermostats to 26°C, install LED lighting on their refrigerated shelves, and put in air-conditioners with variable-frequency drives. The upgrades will cost a total of NT$1.8 billion over three years, but will save NT$1 billion annually in electricity costs, repaying their investment in less than two years.

After signing the agreement with the convenience stores, the bureau approached other firms and institutions in the service sector with the contract, specifically those that deal with large numbers of people and use large amounts of energy to heat water and run air conditioners-hypermarkets, hospitals, hotels, department stores, malls, and supermarkets.

He Yuequan, director of TESA, notes that while green lighting is the quickest route to energy savings, companies and institutions that use boilers to heat a great deal of hot water-e.g. textile dying and finishing firms, hotels, hospitals, and steel mills-have the greatest potential to reduce their energy use.

Evergreen Sky Catering, located near the Taoyuan International Airport, is a case in point. The company provides 220 tons of hot water per day to its kitchens and employee housing. It used to heat this water in two diesel-fired boilers, and paid through the nose when international oil prices rose. (An index of the fuel cost to heat 1,000 liters of water that assigns electricity a baseline score of 100, scores petroleum at 97, diesel at 77, and a heat pump-by far the cheapest-at just 23.)

Last April, Evergreen Sky Catering began replacing its boilers with heat pump systems. Heat pumps are a bit like air conditioners in that they use a refrigerant to absorb heat energy. The pump passes the refrigerant through a compressor, releases it, and then delivers the heat to the desired location. Evergreen saved NT$5.05 million in fuel costs in the year after its installation of the pumps, and recovered all of the project's costs in just 1.1 years.

Some energy conservation projects are incredibly expensive. In cases in which the high cost of a project gives owners pause, they may be able to sign a "project performance guarantee" with an energy services company. Such guarantees obviate the need to pay for the project upfront. Instead, the company pays for the project out of its savings on its energy bills over the period specified in its contract with the energy services company, with the project's performance certified by an impartial third party such as the TGPF.

For example, Forever Friend Energy & Technology last year agreed to upgrade the water heating and air-conditioning systems at Taichung's Freshfield Resort and Conference Center. The project, which cost roughly NT$50 million, is expected to save the resort NT$8.8 million per year on its energy bills. Under the agreement the two companies signed, the resort will pay 80% of the project's fuel savings over the next seven years (roughly NT$7 million per year) to Forever Friend. It will keep the remaining 20% itself.

TESA estimates that approximately 60% of domestic energy conservation projects utilize this kind of payment model and believes that it has been very helpful to the industry.

The green-collar workers diagnosing the energy ills of Taiwan's communities and businesses are at the forefront of environmental protection efforts. In the photo, ITRI's Energy Conservation Vanguard is checking out a cooling tower belonging to the operator of a hot spring spa.

The heart of the problem

Of course, not every energy conservation project costs a fortune. The owner of an office building in Zhonghe, Taipei County, last year sought the assistance of ITRI's Technology Center for Service Industries in resolving ventilation problems in its underground parking garage. He was unhappy with the air quality, which he ascribed to a combination of car exhausts and the stink from a nearby septic tank. He left the ventilation system on 24/7, leading to electric bills in excess of NT$300,000 per month.

Richard Kuo, deputy general director of the center, helped with the diagnosis and proposed a solution to the root problem: periodically adding enzymes to the septic tank. This would eliminate the stink, allowing the owner to run the ventilation system only during rush hour-just three hours per day, when cars were getting backlogged in the garage's narrow entrance and exit, creating high levels of carbon monoxide-thereby cutting his electricity expenses by 80%.

"You always have to track down the root cause when making a diagnosis," says Kuo. "Then you resolve it by applying principles that accord with nature." Kuo, who used to advise 25 frozen-barbequed-eel producers in Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties, offers an example from his own experience. He explains that barbequed-eel processing plants are very hot places that stay hot even after the thermostats on air-conditioning units are turned all the way down. "Unless you first expel the heat, the air-conditioner is fighting a losing battle," he says.

Kuo's approach was to first install insulation around the stoves to keep the heat localized, then use intake and exhaust vents to draw the heat out. But some of the heat still got into the rest of the facility via doorways and even drains, increasing bacteria counts and creating a hygiene problem. Kuo addressed the issue by installing filters on the intake vents, as well as bacteria-killing ultraviolet lamps. In this instance, each improvement was linked to the others.

Taipei is beautifully and brilliantly lit at night. But all this light is itself a kind of pollution that not only obscures the stars but also wastes energy and fosters global warming. The replacement of energy wasting neon signs and marques is becoming the mark of the civilized city.

Reducing CO2

Energy services firms do everything from checking cooling towers for efficiency-impairing rust and dirt to replacing energy-wasting boilers and lighting, recycling and reusing waste heat, and installing equipment that intelligently monitors and controls a building's energy usage. They're like energy doctors monitoring how much carbon is being belched out into the air above Taiwan.

Carbon reductions are a bit like weight loss: you need a goal before you can change your habits and your diet. The Statute on the Reduction of Greenhouse Gasses being drafted by the legislature-a bill much anticipated by environmentalists-will address the issue of worsening climate change by creating an action program that sets a ceiling on total carbon emissions, lays out a timetable for major industries to cut their emissions, and establishes fines for exceeding emissions limits.

But cutting greenhouse gas emissions isn't a zero-sum game. Efforts to develop green energy, increase our energy efficiency, and utilize low-carbon, no-carbon, and carbon-neutral business models are representative of the search for ways to live in harmony with the environment. The government, industry, and the public must recognize that we're all in the same boat.