United Kingdom • • • 🌿 Progressive

Parque eólico marino al atardecer frente al horizonte de Taipéi
Energía eólica marina, eje de la cooperación energética entre el Reino Unido y Taiwán · Imagen generada — Erick Prometeo Media

UK and Taiwan launch a carbon capture partnership in Taipei

The eighth UK-Taiwan Energy Dialogue, held in Taipei on 20 October, launched a bilateral carbon capture, utilisation and storage partnership with three…

--- The context --- Energy cooperation between the United Kingdom and Taiwan already spans more than two decades of joint work on renewable energy, and its latest meeting in Taipei comes at a moment when security of supply, the climate crisis and the rising electricity demand of the digital economy have become inseparable. The eighth Energy Dialogue and the 21st Renewable Energy Conference brought together policymakers, regulators, industry representatives and experts from both sides in Taipei on 20 October to deepen that relationship. The event, organised by the British Office Taipei and Taiwan's Energy Administration, was more than another ceremonial fixture: it launched a new instrument devoted to one of the most debated technologies of the transition, carbon capture, utilisation and storage, known as CCUS, aimed at cutting emissions from industries that cannot simply switch to renewable electricity. --- The facts --- The day was opened by Ruth Bradley-Jones, Representative at the British Office Taipei, and Cynthia Kiang, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs, and chaired by Simon Payne, Head of International Bilateral Cooperation at the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and Chih-Wei Wu, Director General of Taiwan's Energy Administration. The central outcome was the launch of the UK-Taiwan CCUS Partnership, a flagship project under the Energy and Net Zero pillar of the Enhanced Trade Partnership between the two sides. The partnership is organised around three workstreams: policy and regulatory cooperation, covering policy design, regulatory frameworks and financing models; technical cooperation on research, innovation and deployment, connecting researchers, technical institutions and clusters around storage, monitoring and verification; and commercial pipeline and investor engagement, connecting companies, investors and project owners at an appropriate time. Over time, a joint secretariat will be established to coordinate activities and monitor delivery across the three workstreams, overseen by senior officials from both sides and supported by working-level leads. The dialogue itself consisted of three sessions on energy security, offshore wind and CCUS, while the parallel conference featured representatives from 13 leading UK companies and covered grid resilience in the AI era, floating offshore wind, subsea cable technologies, operational optimisation and marine services, alongside the next phase of the wider energy transition. --- The positions --- In the energy security session, Simon Payne presented the impact of the Strait of Hormuz crisis on the UK transition and argued, as he set out in the session, that recent market disruption reinforced the view that clean energy deployment strengthens security by reducing exposure to international fossil fuel price shocks, while also supporting affordability and climate goals. Fang-Ling Liao, Director of the Energy Policy and Climate Change Division at Taiwan's Energy Administration, set out Taiwan's response to two linked challenges: rising electricity demand from AI and semiconductor supply chains, and geopolitical risks to fuel supply. Liao outlined Taiwan's Second Energy Transition, focused on diversified green energy, efficiency, storage and grid resilience, together with regular reviews of long-term power demand, additional gas-fired capacity, stronger requirements for large data centres, emergency response arrangements, diversified fuel supplies and strategic reserves. Bradley-Jones highlighted the increasingly close relationship between energy security, economic security and the energy transition, and welcomed the partnership as a step forward for bilateral cooperation, while Kiang linked energy security to the net-zero transition in the face of geopolitical tensions, extreme weather events and volatility in energy markets across the region and beyond. --- What remains unknown --- The official account gives no concrete timetable for the joint secretariat to begin work, and no named projects that the new partnership will advance in its first phase. It also does not specify what funding will accompany the three workstreams, nor which companies will take part in the commercial and investor line, which the partnership itself places at an appropriate time still to be defined. On offshore wind, the next Taiwanese allocation rounds within its long-term plan and the timetable for floating wind demonstration projects remain to be detailed, as does the practical division of work between clusters and research institutions on both sides on storage, monitoring and verification of captured carbon, and on strengthening local supply chains and financing for the next phase of deployment. --- Unanswered questions --- When will the joint secretariat of the partnership start operating, and what resources will it have to coordinate the three workstreams? Which concrete projects will be the first to benefit from the new bilateral cooperation on carbon capture? How will progress be measured: by agreements signed, by investment mobilised or by emissions avoided? What role will the 13 leading UK companies represented at the conference play in the next phase of cooperation? --- EPM analysis --- The significance of the Taipei meeting lies in joining three fronts that are often treated separately: security of supply, renewable expansion and the decarbonisation of heavy industry. Offshore wind provides renewable scale, with the UK already at 16.7 GW installed and a record allocation round, and Taiwan at around 5 GW with 515 turbines in operation. CCUS supplies the missing piece for hard-to-abate sectors, where neither electrification nor renewables are enough on their own. Taiwan's flagship carbon reduction action plan aims to cut emissions by 6 million metric tonnes of CO₂e annually by 2035, while the UK is advancing its HyNet and East Coast clusters with tailored business models for capture, transport and storage and shared infrastructure for sectors such as cement. 📌 EPM Take: In EPM's view, the partnership launched in Taipei matters because it turns a long-standing bilateral relationship into a permanent mechanism, with a joint secretariat, three workstreams and oversight by senior officials, instead of leaving it at declarations of intent. Its real test will not be the announcement, but the speed with which it produces verifiable projects in carbon capture, offshore wind and grid resilience, against a backdrop of rising electricity demand from artificial intelligence and volatile energy markets that affect both partners equally in this decisive century for the climate and for clean industry everywhere.
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