City Hall Receives Donation of Air Conditioners from Panasonic Taiwan
In the process of promoting green buildings, the long-term goal focuses on energy conservation and carbon emission reduction, while installation of air cons remains a short-term solution balancing energy-saving with the maintenance of a comfortable environment. Thanks to private and public collaboration, Taipei City has completed the installation of air cons for all regular classrooms across local public schools.
Taiwan Panasonic is contributing to the effort by donating a total of 180 air conditioners worth nearly NT$7 million. A total of five city elementary schools received 60 units, helping to complete the last mile of the ambitious project of equipping all regular classrooms in Taipei’s public schools with air conditioners. Another 7 vocational high schools also received 120 units from the company.
The issue of lowering campus temperature cannot be resolved by installing air conditioners alone. The Department of Education (DOE) believes that in the long run, the response must be integrated with sustainable green campus strategies, which involves educating students on the importance of carbon emission reduction, thereby helping them to develop habits useful in day-to-day life.
A portion of the funding from the Ministry of Education’s Forward-looking Infrastructure Project is allocated to the replacement/installation of air conditioners for regular classrooms, vocational school classrooms, libraries, and kindergarten classrooms nationwide. Taipei City proposed the installation of 6,311 units for 185 local schools, which requires a budget of NT$306,681,000. The aforementioned fund from the ministry will cover 70% of the estimated budget, while DOE is responsible for the remaining 30% – roughly NT$92,004,300.
At the donation ceremony, Mayor Ko Wen-je expressed his gratitude to Panasonic Taiwan for its generosity in supporting a comfortable learning environment for students and faculty. This shows that there are many people in Taipei with passion to improve the environment for learning. He looks forward to seeing further cooperation among PTAs, private companies, and civic groups to help make school campuses greener and more sustainable in the future.