MOEA: Taipei tech park outage not due to power shortage

TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Minister of Economic Affairs Kuo Jyh-Huei (郭智輝) clarified on Tuesday (June 18) that the unexpected power outage in Taipei's Neihu Technology Park was not due to a power shortage, while pledging to quickly identify and address the problem.

The Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant (核三廠) Unit 1 is scheduled to shut down on July 27, raising concerns about potential power shortages during the peak summer demand. The plant began reducing its operations on Tuesday, decreasing its daily output by about 9 million watts, leading to speculations that the power outage in Taipei could be a result of this reduction.

However, officials assured that the net power generation remains around 99% of its capacity. Meanwhile, Taiwan Power Company (台電) initiated power generation from the diesel gas turbine at the Maanshan plant a few days earlier and released water from the Feitsui and Shihmen reservoirs for hydroelectric power generation.

This move also sparked concerns about a potential power shortage, which Minister Kuo quickly dismissed, explaining that both actions were routine tests to ensure the generators function correctly and do not indicate a power shortage.

He insisted that the outage in Neihu was unrelated to a power shortage, suggesting it could be due to inadequate maintenance or increased demand in areas with older equipment. Later, Taipower attributed the outage to a fault in an underground cable joint, which has since been replaced and repaired.

With the retirement of Unit 1 of the Maanshan plant and other units, the total capacity will decrease by 442,000 kilowatts. However, the addition of new units will add a capacity of 443,000 kilowatts, balancing the reduction.

Chair Professor Liang Chi-yuan (梁啟源) of National Central University questioned this balance, pointing out that two of the new units rely on a natural gas supply station that will be operational only in April next year.

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