100% Renewable Energy Adoption is Possible For Taiwan’s ICT Companies

The questions is whether 100% renewable energy adoption is possible for Taiwan’s ICT companies or not? The answer is yes. Artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, smartphones and smartwatches – evidence of our digital age is everywhere. The digital age is predicated on the growing manufacturing of semiconductors and other components that make up the electronic devices that populate modern life.

With its centrality comes immense energy consumption. And with energy consumption comes large greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The electronics industry accounted for approximately 2-3% of worldwide GHG emissions in 2021.

In response to the industry’s oversized electricity consumption and carbon footprint, electronics brands and suppliers are committed to powering their operations with increasing shares of renewable energy. Their motivations are clear. For one thing, more and more end consumers are demanding that the devices they use be as sustainable as possible. Another is that the electronics brands themselves see the writing on the wall. They realise that adopting renewable energy will be better for their bottom lines in the long run.

In June, the environmental nonprofit Greenpeace, in partnership with the Research Centre for Sustainable Hong Kong, published a cost-benefit analysis that underpins this claim. It shows that an earlier adoption of 100% renewable energy will yield both economic and climate benefits for 13 of East Asia’s largest electronics manufacturers.

This finding applies equally to companies in Taiwan, a high-tech electronics powerhouse in Asia. So far, Taiwanese electronics firms’ renewable energy commitments have lagged behind many of their competitors. This report provides an empirical justification for the Taiwanese electronics industry to push for more ambitious renewable energy adoption.

100% Renewable Energy Adoption Strengthens Business Competitiveness

Greenpeace’s report conducts a cost-benefit analysis of the renewable energy pathway for 13 leading electronics companies in East Asia, TSMC, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Luxshare Precision, Goertek, Foxconn, Pegatron, Samsung Display, LG Display, AUO, BOE, UMC and Innolux.

The report finds that achieving 100% renewable energy by 2030 will yield both financial and environmental benefits for all of these companies. Financially, they could reduce their energy expenses by between USD 87.42 million and USD 12.45 billion per company in 2030. This is thanks to avoiding the rising costs of fossil energy, as a result of carbon pricing and emissions trading schemes, and the declining LCOE of renewable energy in many markets.

Environmentally, if all 13 manufacturers in the study were to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2030, their combined CO2 emissions for the year 2030 would be reduced by 231.6 million tonnes. The reduction in emissions would exceed the total emissions of the Netherlands in 2022.

Taiwan’s Electronics Industry: Renewables Versus Business As Usual

TSMC

The tech giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) is one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers by revenue in the semiconductor industry. It held 61% of the global market share among semiconductor foundry companies in the first quarter of 2024 and provides 92% of advanced chips used in modern electronics.

TSMC’s massive manufacturing operations and consumption of fossil-based electricity lead to more GHG emissions than any other chipmaker, prompting pushback from local environmental campaigners. Furthermore, the timeline for TSMC’s 100% renewable energy target is too long — 2040 instead of 2030, which would more accurately reflect the urgency of the climate crisis.  

The Greenpeace report finds that if TSMC were to accelerate its transition and meet 100% of its energy use with renewables by 2030, rather than 2040, it could significantly reduce both its energy cost and carbon emissions. Adopting 100% renewables by 2030 would allow TSMC to avoid 10.22 million tonnes of CO2 and could save USD 540.92 million in energy costs.

AUO

AUO manufactures display panels and crystal silicon wafers for semiconductors. Its products are used in sectors as wide-ranging as retail, transportation, manufacturing, healthcare, education and solar panels. Its 38,000 employees in manufacturing sites in mainland China, Singapore, which recently closed, and Slovakia helped to generate a revenue of NTD 246.8 billion (USD 7.6 billion) in 2022.

AUO’s renewable energy targets are even more unambitious than TSMC’s. For 2030, AUO is targeting an increase in the share of renewables from 1.16% in 2022 to 30% of its total electricity consumption. Only in 2050 does it intend to use 100% renewables.

But if AUO were to achieve 100% renewables by 2030, it could save USD 273.69 million and avoid 3.66 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Innolux

Innolux is Taiwan’s leading display panel manufacturer and the world’s third-largest flat panel maker after South Korea’s Samsung and LG. Its manufacturing plants in Taiwan and China produce liquid crystal displays used in TV panels, desktop monitors and laptop panels, medical and automotive panels and other applications. 

Among the three Taiwanese electronics companies, Innolux’s renewable energy target is the least ambitious. It has the lowest renewable energy use among them, at 0.4% of overall electricity consumption in 2022. More egregiously, Innolux is yet to issue a 100% renewable energy target. It has committed to shifting completely to renewables for all of its office locations by 2030, but the company’s renewable energy targets for its manufacturing plants stop at 20% of total energy use by 2030.

The Greenpeace report estimates that, if Innolux transitioned to 100% RE by 2030, it could avoid 3.94 million tonnes of CO2 and save USD 294.93 million in energy and environmental costs. Those savings will bolster Innolux’s international competitiveness, improve its brand image and help expand Taiwan’s total renewable energy generation capacity.

Doing Well by Doing Good

Central to modern life, the electronics sector nevertheless accounts for a significant portion of global GHG emissions. It’s about time for the major electronics manufacturers in Taiwan, an electronics-producing powerhouse, to commit to an ambitious and early target to adopt 100% renewable energy use. Doing so will have the obvious benefit of avoiding millions of tonnes of planet-warming gases. Perhaps more importantly for those companies’ executives and shareholders, an early shift to renewables will also boost their bottom lines by saving millions of dollars in energy costs and environmental and social costs, improving their overall competitiveness. Taiwan’s electronics makers can do well by doing good.