Leveraging External and Domestic Niches:
The Protective Space in Taiwan’s W ind Power Development from Onshore to Offshoreチン陳

イ ー チュン

奕均*Yi-chun CHEN

1. Introduction
Wind power is a renewable energy (RE) with a long history. In recent years, the deploying ofwind power has gradually shifted from onshore towards offshore. Taiwanese government
announced energy transition policy in 2016, which declared the phase-out of nuclear power andan increase in RE to 20% in its power generation by 2025. Given this policy, a total of 5.5GW
capacity of offshore wind power (OSW) will be installed. This attracted the major wind power
players like Ørsted to invest in Taiwan, taking Taiwan as their ticket to the OSW development in
Asia-Pacific region. According to the allocated capacity which needs to finish grid connection by2025, foreign developers obtained around 80 percent of the OSW capacity.
The diffusion of Taiwan’s wind power starts after 2006, not until 2015 did it surpassed bysolar PV in the installed capacity. However, the diffusion of onshore wind power did not bring thecomplete formation of the supply chain to sustain it. The market has been occupied by only twodevelopers: state-owned utility Taipower and a Germany developer Infravest. In the current OSWdevelopment, the government asked the developers to promise an incorporation of local supply
chain into the OSW development. Although Taiwan’s wind power industry failed in supporting its
onshore wind power deployment in the past, the foreign OSW developers said they haveconfidence in Taiwanese local suppliers.
In sustainable transition studies, RE can be defined as developing in a niche, i.e. a protective
space, to keep it from the competition of mainstream technologies. This paper hence adopted theconcept of the niche as a protective space for wind power, to analyze the niche formation in
Taiwan, and how it affects the development of wind power from onshore towards offshore.
2. Methods and analytical framework
We used a qualitative research methodology. We compiled the qualitative and quantitative
facts, mainly from governmental, academic documents and mass media, to formulate historicalevents regarding the actors and RE development in order to build the “storylines” for analysis.
Regarding analytical framework, we referenced to Smith and Raven (2012)’s elaboration on*

京都大学経済研究所附属 先端政策分析研究センター

Research Center for Advanced Policy
Studies, Institute of Economic R esearch, Kyoto University〒 606-8501 京 都 市 左 京 区 吉 田 本 町 E-mail: chen -yichun@kier.kyoto -u.ac.jp

the “protective space” which indicated three functions: shield, nurture and empower. We firstly
go through the history of wind power in Taiwan, and then indicate t he involved actors, their
networks and narratives used, and finally analyze the formation and functions of the protective
space and how it affects the development of wind power in Taiwan.
3. Results
The functions of the protective space in Taiwan’s wind power development have been
provided by the government, and private sector within the local niche (Taiwan) and from theexternal niches as well. Although in the early years, the Taiwanese government took wind power
as the more economic RE which should be diffused first, the policies and overall planning forwind power failed to support the building of a supply chain or a national champion turbine
manufacturer to sustain Taiwan’s wind power diffusion . However, the process of wind power
diffusion brought the knowledge of wind power which includes physical technology andinstitutions such as feed-in tariff (FIT), while also provides the room for the initial formation of
the supply chain. The functions of shield, nurture and empower were provided by the niche. At
the same time, Taiwanese firms which invested and located in China participated in the growth of
China’s wind power industry, like Swancor, leveraging the China’s wind power niche as a spacefor shielding and nurturing, taking on wind-power technology develop ing and having the chance
to contact the major international suppliers. When it turns to a more friendly environment in theTaiwan niche (i.e. energy transition, promotion of OSW), these overseas Taiwanese firms flowedback to Taiwan, and they cooperated with the achievements from the local niche, with the leadingof foreign developers who brought the experience, knowledge and international network to foster
the ongoing OSW development in Taiwan.
4. Conclusions
This paper applied the concept of a “protective space” (niche) as the research framework toanalyze the development of onshore and offshore wind power in Taiwan. It shows that besides
leveraging the local (Taiwan) niche, Taiwan also utilized the external niche to make up for thedeficiency during its formation. Finally, this combines with local niche and the foreign
investments to proceed the upgrading of technology and mature the niche for facilitating a future
OSW diffusion. This paper addressed the “spatial narrowness” issue in sustainable transition
studies through investigating the case of Taiwan’s wind power development. The results canprovide implications for those countries which do not have a large-scale domestic market, orenough technological capability to sustain industry building; or which face the ill-functioning ofdomestic niches, in their developing RE, especially in wind power.