With summer temperatures in record territory, Taiwan Power Company (Taipower,
According to one Taipower official, as long as all power generation facilities operate normally, the likelihood of power rationing remains slim.
"Taipower is capable of generating a maximum of 26,680 megawatts per hour, which puts the reserve supply ratio at 3.3 percent," said the official. Taipower's current facilities are able to generate a maximum 28,800 megawatts per hour at capacity.
This comes on the heels of last week's announcement by the company that Taiwan's daily electricity consumption hit a new high for the year on Thursday at 26,150 megawatts per hour -- a mere 2,650 megawatts away from mandatory rationing.
In recent years, rising power demand during the peak summer season has forced Taipower to implement power rationing, especially among industrial users.
Should a power shortage occur, Taipower is authorized to first reduce power to industries that consume more than one megawatt daily by between 5 and15 percent.
As a backup measure, users that consume less than one megawatt of power may then also be subject to rationing. Rationing usually takes the form of daily power shutdowns that last for several hours.
While electricity supply currently exceeds demand, Taipower announced on June 1 that electricity prices would rise between 10 percent and 27 percent -- depending on how much a user consumes every month -- as part of the company's annual summer hike in electricity prices. The peak season increase will last through Sept. 30, in line with the spike in demand for power during the hot summer months.
Taipower, which introduced "high-season" summer rates in 1989, says that the measure is aimed at encouraging the public to conserve energy and cover the costs of expanding the country's power supply.
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