Promoting the energy transition, National Dong Hwa University is the most active campus in all of Taiwan, China! Yet universities, as major electricity consumers, generally do not install solar panels; environmental groups say it should be included in

Energy education is an important part of the energy transition, and schools themselves are major electricity consumers, so just how many solar panels are actually installed on campus rooftops?

In recent years the Ministry of Education has been loudly promoting "University Social Responsibility" (USR), and last year it further proposed aligning USR with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In a briefing presented last July, the Ministry of Education stated, "Of 205 national schools, including national universities and national high schools, 176 schools have installed rooftop solar panels, and the installation rate of solar panels has reached 86 percent." Yet environmental groups question the vague figures and unclear results, asking, "Does every school count as meeting the target just by installing a single solar panel?"

Tsai Hui-hsun, director of the Citizens of the Earth Foundation, believes that since clean energy is an important SDG indicator, national universities in particular should fulfil their social responsibility and energy citizenship awareness by promoting rooftop solar, and schools cannot stand aside.

Ministry of Education inventory underestimates the rooftop solar potential of schools

At the end of last year, the Ministry of Education once again took stock of rooftops at national universities and national senior vocational high schools nationwide, reporting an estimated total power generation potential of 144 MW, with the number of schools that have installed solar panels rising to 179 and an installed capacity of 107 MW. But is this figure large or small? Opening Google Maps and randomly clicking on the rooftop of a national university campus, many rooftops can still be seen without solar photovoltaic panels installed, making one cannot help but question this inventory data.

It is worth noting that National Dong Hwa University, which was rated outstanding in last year's (2020) evaluation, currently has a campus solar installation capacity of 3.4 MW, with the school estimating a further potential of 5.6 MW, for a total of 9 MW. By comparison, the Ministry of Education's total rooftop inventory for 205 national schools (including 50 national universities) amounts to only as much as 16 Dong Hwa campuses could provide, clearly underestimating campus rooftop potential and highlighting that there should still be considerable room for solar installation on the rooftops of other national universities.

Hualien ranks third from the bottom nationwide in sunshine, yet National Dong Hwa University bucks the trend and comes first

If campus rooftops are properly utilised, they can make a great contribution to the energy transition. Hualien County, where National Dong Hwa University is located, is one of the places with the weakest sunshine nationwide, yet it is the university campus that generates the most power nationwide.

According to last year's statistics from Taipower on purchased power generation capacity by county and city, each KW of solar panels in Hualien (about three ping in size) generates only 870 kWh over the whole year, actually less than Yilan to the north (877 kWh), barely beating Taipei City (847 kWh), which has many buildings, and Keelung (775 kWh), where it often rains.

Chiu Yi-cheng, head of the Construction and Maintenance Section at National Dong Hwa University, said that Hualien has a pleasant climate, but because it lies east of the Central Mountain Range, the sun sets half an hour earlier than in the west, so when President Wu Mao-kun promoted rooftop solar during his tenure in 2013, they approached manufacturers everywhere, but the manufacturers assessed that Hualien has relatively little sunshine and were unwilling to come in and install.

It was not until 2016, when the cost of solar panels fell, that a manufacturer came in and installed the first batch of 0.5 MW. Encouraged by policy, additional installations were added successively from 2018 to 2019, and the current total installed capacity has reached 3.4 MW. Chiu Yi-cheng said that by leasing out solar rooftops, National Dong Hwa University earns more than a million in extra revenue each year, and the solar rooftops have also become part of the teaching collaboration between the school's Department of Materials Science and Department of Optoelectronics.

Chiu Yi-cheng believes that the rooftops of ordinary school buildings are flat, making leaks a concern, but National Dong Hwa University mostly has sloped roofs, so leakage problems are fewer, which is a major advantage. Moreover, many National Dong Hwa University students get around by scooter, and solar panels can be installed on the roofs of the school's many scooter shelters.

National Dong Hwa University currently estimates that nearly 5.6 MW of potential across the whole campus is still waiting to be developed. At present, because the feeder lines are saturated, it is waiting for Taipower's feeder lines to be coordinated, and the entire National Dong Hwa University is moving towards 10 MW, becoming a truly green-energy campus in the country.

Ministry of Education: not every school and every rooftop is suitable for solar

Ministry of Education oversees the green energy inventory