Companies are back at full power

The Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) and the Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) yesterday scrambled to make up for their bungling in management of the nation's power supply which resulted in power being rationed to hundreds of companies.

A day after Taipower's chairman resigned, full power was restored to the firms and more executives from the two energy companies offered to resign.

The electricity rationing, which took those affected by surprise when it was announced on Wednesday, reduced power to about 2,000 companies, including those in the petrochemical, textile and electronics industries, after the late delivery of natural gas left Taipower unable to generate enough electricity.

By 8:30am yesterday, full power had been restored to 260 firms that use more than 5,000 kilowatts per day. Another 1,693 companies that use between 1,000 to 4,999 kilowatts per day had full power restored by 10:30pm on Wednesday.

Taipower had originally announced that the companies would have to use 15 percent less power from 2pm on Wednesday until 12pm today.

The shortage came only weeks after Taipower declared that it would have ample electricity for the peak summer season, with excess power reaching record highs.

Taipower chairman Lin Wen-yuan (林文淵), who had only been on the job for 69 days, tendered his resignation on Wednesday to take responsibility for announcing the measure at such short notice. Wu Rong-i (吳榮義), president of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台經院), has temporarily taken over Lin's position.

The economics ministry said in a press release late last night that Lin Nen-bai (林能白), a business management professor at National Taiwan University and former chairman of the Public Construction Commission, has agreed to become Taipower's permanent chairman. Taipower will hold a board meeting soon to finalize the appointment, the statement said.

Earlier yesterday, Chinese Petroleum Chairman Chen Chao-wei (陳朝威) and Taipower President Lin Ching-chi (林清吉) also offered to resign.

Chen offered his resignation over what he said was Chinese Petroleum's failure to provide natural gas to Taipower on time.

Chinese Petroleum reduced its gas supplies to Taipower Wednesday afternoon, forcing the power company to reduce its power generation abruptly. Residential users were not affected.

But after a meeting with Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday, Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (林義夫) told reporters that he has persuaded both Chen and Lin Ching-chi to stay.

But Minister Lin stressed that Taipower officials would be punished for their role in the fiasco.

According to a press release from Chinese Petroleum, sales of natural gas surpassed projected purchase limits by about 18,000 tonnes last week because of the hot weather. As a result, the company's gas reserves plunged, so that it had only a one-day supply by Wednesday morning, it said.

A container ship with 60,000 tons of natural gas arrived in Taiwan yesterday morning and temporarily relieved the situation.

Taipower said the problem had been compounded by some of its power stations not generating at full capacity.

Taipower's Hoping (和平) Power Station had been offline for maintenance and security checks, and the drought had rendered many of the company's hydroelectric stations at reservoirs inoperable, according to a company statement.