Taipower officially launched its 2025 Environmental Month today (April 30). Following earlier conservation efforts such as relocating bat habitats at the Taixi Wind Farm and creating bird habitats at the Yong'an Wetlands by Hsinta Power Plant, Taipower has now completed an aquatic ecological corridor at its Dajia River Power Plant. Aligning with global trends in biological conservation, Taipower has embraced the principles of OECM (Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures) by extending conservation efforts beyond legally designated protected areas. Guided by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Taipower proactively launched an OECM demonstration project in the Ma'an Dam area of the Dajia River. The results of this conservation effort, along with future planning, have been verified by an impartial third-party organization as meeting international standards.
The Taipower 2025 Environmental Month Launch Event, held today at its headquarters under the theme Coexisting with Nature, Moving Forward with Taipower, was attended and supported by Taipower Chairman Wen-Sheng Tseng, President Yao-Ting Wang, Deputy Executive Director of the Executive Yuan's Office of Energy and Carbon Reduction Tze-Luen Lin, Secretary General of the Ministry of Economic Affairs Ming-Chih Chuang, Director-General of the Department of State-owned Enterprise Affairs Wen-Chung Hu, Professor Kwang-Tsao Shao of National Taiwan Ocean University, Emeritus Professor Ching-Hsien Tseng of National Tsing Hua University, and Professor Lee-Shing Fang of National Sun Yat-sen University. A special guest, Professor Nobuyuki Yagi from the University of Tokyo, former UN biodiversity policy expert and a key architect of Japan's OECM framework, attended to witness Taipower's ecological conservation work at the Dajia River Power Plant meeting global benchmarks.

Reviewing its 2024 environmental performance, Taipower reported major progress: compared to its 2016 baseline, air pollutant emission intensity from thermal power units (covering the total particulate matter (PM), sulfur oxides (SOx), and nitrogen oxides (NOx) per kilowatt-hour generated) have dropped by nearly 70%. Carbon emission intensity (greenhouse gas emissions per kilowatt-hour) have decreased by 11%.
In terms of ecological conservation, Taipower emphasized that hydroelectric plants have strong connections to local ecosystems and cultural heritage. The Dajia River Basin hosts a rich diversity of species, including the Plumbeous Water Redstart, Formosan Reeve's muntjac, and the Taiwan leaf-nosed bat, along with a diverse riverine ecosystem. The OECM demonstration zone covers the upstream and downstream stretches of the Ma'an Dam, home to 17 fish species and critical habitats for native species such as the Taiwan torrent carp, Taiwan shovel-jaw carp, and river loach. To balance power generation with ecological conservation, Taipower constructed a fishway at Ma'an Dam as early as 1998 to assist fish migration, and further upgraded it in 2016 by lowering the entrance threshold and riverbed drop, enabling smaller or leaping fish species to swim upstream more successfully. 

Taipower further explained that, to better evaluate the fishway's effectiveness, the Company began deploying underwater monitoring cameras in 2023 to record fish movement within the passage. Last year, the Company also developed an AI-based Species Recognition System. By combining expert tagging with an expanding image database, Taipower now monitors fishway usage more accurately and in real time.
Taipower noted that the Dajia River Power Plant has carried out sustained conservation efforts for more than a decade. The OECM project was guided by experts and further verified by PwC Taiwan (one of Taiwan's Big Four Accounting Firms), confirming that the upstream and downstream sections of the Ma'an Dam align with IUCN's OECM guidelines. A verification certificate was presented today and received by President Yao-Ting Wang on behalf of Taipower . Taipower also stated that as Taiwan officially announces its OECM standards and certification system, the Company will strive to support the process and is confident that it will become one of the first companies in Taiwan to earn government OECM certification. 

Glossary:
OECM  (Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures ):
Specific geographical areas outside of legally designated protected areas where diverse governance and management approaches deliver measurable biodiversity and ecosystem conservation outcomes.

Spokesperson: Vice President Chih-Meng Tsai
Tel:  (02 )2366-6271/0958-749-333
Email: u910707@taipower.com.tw
Contact Person: Director of the Environmental Protection Department Cheng-Hung Wu
Tel:  (02 )2366-7200/0927-291-156
Email: u015279@taipower.com.tw