Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to spend NT$16.2 billion (US$528 million) in five years to revamp electricity distribution systems to stabilize electricity supply amid climbing temperatures and rising power consumption.
The state-run utility announced the plan after a series of power outages disrupted the operations of local airports, hospitals and businesses in May and June.
A major blackout in June left 2,800 users in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) without electricity for 12 minutes after distribution equipment malfunctioned. Taipei 101 and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store (新光三越百貨) were among those affected by the outage.
To ease concern over power supply, Taipower said it aims to reduce the number of outages by 600 this year from last year by improving its distribution network.
There were 6,294 electricity outages across the nation last year, Taipower statistics showed.
“Taipower targets a 9 percent reduction in malfunctions of its secondary substations, which each distribute power to more than 1,000 individual users — such as households, stores and factories,” Taipower spokesman Hsu Tsao-hua (徐造華) said by telephone.
Taipower’s target is to reduce blackout duration by 0.1 minutes per year for every household over the next five years, from an average blackout duration of 16.9 minutes last year, Hsu said.
In the past, blackout times only dropped 0.05 minutes per year, he said.
The NT$16.2 billion outlay would primarily be spent to upgrade aging equipment at secondary substations, as well as transformers and distribution lines, while new surveillance systems would be installed to prevent equipment overloads, Taipower said in a statement.
An estimated 4,612km of sheathed electrical wiring is to be replaced by 2022, Taipower said.
The utility said it plans to upgrade 1,471km of underground cables that carry high-voltage power.
Separately, Taipower said that power consumption dropped slightly to 35.98 gigawatts yesterday after a historical high of 37.23 gigawatts for a second consecutive day on Wednesday as Taiwan experienced temperatures of more than 39°C at noon.
However, the nation’s power supply continued to be constrained yesterday, with an operating reserve margin of 6.17 percent during peak hours, compared with 6.18 percent on Wednesday, Taipower’s Web site showed.
The reserve margin triggered a “yellow” warning, indicating “tight” supply, when operating reserves are between 6 and 10 percent, the utility said.
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