An orange alert was issued yesterday for the nation’s power supply system after a power plant in Yunlin County broke down and consumption remained high due to the sweltering heat, state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) said.
A breakdown of a generating unit at a coal-fired power plant in Mailiao Township (麥寮) disrupted the supply of 600 megawatts of power, while electricity consumption hit a peak of 34.49 GW at 1:50pm, the utility said.
When power consumption was at its highest, the operating reserve as a percentage of total generating capacity was 5.72 percent, Taipower said.
The company uses a five-color system to indicate the status of power reserves and the stability of the power supply.
“Green” indicates an operating reserve of above 10 percent of total supply, “yellow” signals a reserve of between 6 percent and 10 percent of supply and “orange” means a reserve of less than 6 percent.
A red light indicates that the reserve capacity has fallen below 900,000 kW (about 2.4 percent of the total) and while a black light means the reserve capacity is under 500,000 kW, the precursor for power rationing.
While yesterday’s electricity consumption was high, it was lower than some days last week. However, Taiwan is expected to bake over the next few days, which will continue to push demand to high levels, Taipower said.
The system’s operating reserves between today and Monday next week are likely remain between 3.49 percent and 7.42 percent of the total supply, according to date on Taipower’s official Web site.
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