Kaohsiung City in southern Taiwan is a winner in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s 2022 Energy Smart Communities Initiative Best Practices Awards Program, with gold in the Low Carbon Models Town category and silver in the Smart Transport category. (Staff photo/Chen Mei-ling)
 

Southern Taiwan’s Kaohsiung City is a big winner in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s 2022 Energy Smart Communities Initiative (ESCI) Best Practices Awards Program and was awarded gold in the Low Carbon Models Town category and silver in the Smart Transport category.

The APEC awards showcase the municipality’s success in advancing a green energy transition. The awards are also in global recognition of a long-term vision for a better quality of life and sustainable public mobility.
 

Solar panels on a Kaohsiung elementary school’s rooftops are part of the city’s low carbon plan. (Courtesy of Kaohsiung City Government)
 

Kaohsiung City Government’s Green Transformation: from Heavy Industry to Semiconductor Clusters, a Roadmap to Low Carbon Nirvana is a six-year development plan running from 2021 to 2026. It focuses on energy generation, conservation and storage through the implementation of a multitude of strategies and actions including energy management systems and solar panel installations.

An important component of the transformation is public transport and is made via the Mobility as a Service Program (MaaS) which has created an integrated public transport network with all-in-one ticketing for buses, ferries, light rail, the metro and shared bikes. The MaaS Program offers a convenient, user-friendly mobile ticketing system and provides smartphone accessible real-time transit data.
 

Kaohsiung’s Mobility as a Service Program creates an integrated public transport network with all-in-one ticketing. (Staff photo/Chen Mei-ling)
 

The southern Taiwan city’s projects were among 65 submissions from 17 APEC economies and categories including Smart Buildings, Smart Grids, Smart Jobs and Consumers. Kaohsiung City Deputy Mayor Charles Lin was proud of winning APEC recognition, which helped the city gain international exposure as well as market opportunities for its smart city solutions.

Lin also looked forward to offering the ESCI knowledge gained by the city to counterparts throughout the region. Kaohsiung’s desire to contribute to such development is a prime example of Taiwan’s active engagement in APEC since it joined the intergovernmental forum in 1991.

The country’s deepening involvement in APEC is reflected by the six-fold growth in the number of public and private entities participating in the organization’s various activities and initiatives over the past three decades.
 

Shared bikes are another important component of the municipality’s MaaS Program. (Staff photo/Chen Mei-ling)
 

Write to Taiwan Today at ttonline@mofa.gov.tw

(This article is adapted from Making a Mark in the November/December Issue 2022 of Taiwan Review. The Taiwan Review archives dating to 1951 are available online.)