After spending more than six years reconstructing the Chingshan Power Plant (青山電廠), state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday reactivated the power generation units of the nation’s largest hydroelectric plant.
“The reactivation of the first and second power generation units of the hydroelectric plant will add 184 megawatts of electricity to the nation’s power supply, ” Taipower chairman Hwang Jung-chiou (黃重球) told a press conference at the power plant in Guguan (谷關), Taichung.
Operations at the Chingshan Power Plant, which was built in 1973, were suspended after it was flooded and damaged by Typhoon Mindulle in 2004, construction office manager Chen Shih-ping (陳世坪) said.
“Mud, rocks, tree branches and tree trunks were thrust by floodwater into the plant that is located in an underground tunnel... The plant was seriously damaged by the typhoon,” Chen said.
Not only the main building of the plant, but also nearby roads were damaged by the typhoon, making the reconstruction more difficult, Chen said.
“We spent nearly a year just removing the debris and the damaged power generation units from the plant,” he added.
Chingshan Power Plant director Lee Ching-lung (李慶龍) said that Taipower had spent years communicating with lawmakers and the public about the importance of reactivating the power plant.
The company’s efforts finally paid off and it gained approval from the Executive Yuan to start the reconstruction work in 2009, Lee said.
As the power plant is located in the mountains of central Taiwan and the mountainous roads are vulnerable to natural disasters, Taipower spent more than six years gradually rebuilding the plant, he said.
“The mountainous roads were sometimes blocked by mud and rocks because of heavy rain, making it hard to transport facilities to and from the plant,” he added.
In order to prevent the plant being flooded again, Taipower increased the height of the entrances of the plant, Chen said, adding that the utility also extended the length of the drainage tunnel from 600m to 2.02km to avoid floodwater overwhelming the plant.
Hwang said Taipower is in the process of testing the third and the fourth power generation units at the hydroelectric plant and once the process is completed by the end of the year all four power generation units would boost the nation’s power supply by 368 megawatts.
In addition, the hydroelectric generation units start supplying electricity within five minutes of them being switched on, which is faster than coal-fired power generation, which requires two hours, Hwang said.
The electricity generated by the Chingshan Power Plant can supply more than 170,000 households’ annual electricty usage, he said, stressing that the reactivation of the plant is important given that domestic demand for electricity is rising.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six