Half of Taiwan experienced a power outage yesterday and the Minister of Economic Affairs Lee Chih-kung resigned after a blunder at a large natural gas plant. Three of Taiwan’s six reactors are offline due to political blocking. All six units tripped, removing around 4200 MWe from the grid and triggering a much wider failure.
Some 6.68 million homes and businesses were affected by the blackout, the ministry said.
Taiwan’s power supply is dominated by coal 46% and gas 32%. Nuclear power plants used to provide about 16% of the electricity but the figure has dropped to around 13% in recent years with political obstruction. Kuosheng 2 remains closed following a fire in mid-2016 despite having been repaired, Chinshan 1 has been closed for two years following a fuel fault which has been rectified and Chinshan 2 has not been allowed to restart after a recent typhoon. All these units have regulatory approval to operate.
President Tasi Ing-wen apologized publicly for the blackout and repeated the government’s goal to reduce nuclear power and replace it with a mixture of gas, wind and solar generation, which said gas would meet around 50% of supply in 2025
