The Ministry of Economic Affairs has ordered state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) to build a new wastewater treatment facility for its coal-fired Taichung Power Plant in two years, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生) said.
The plant is the largest single stationary source of air pollution in central Taiwan and has been found to have repeatedly discharged polluted wastewater.
The Taichung City Government last week fined the plant NT$20 million (US$648,130) for releasing polluted industrial wastewater and ordered it to submit a proposal to improve wastewater management within 30 days.
Taipower must submit such a plan to the city by the end of this month, Tseng said on Saturday last week.
In the meantime, the ministry asked Taipower to ensure stable power supply as the Taichung plant is a key supplier of electricity to the nation, especially during the hot summer months, he said.
The plant has suspended operation of its third and fourth generators, and cut the power generation of its first and second generators by 50 percent to meet the city’s wastewater standards and avoid fines.
However, faced with the need to maintain a stable supply of power during the peak summer demand period, Taipower wants to improve its wastewater treatment capacity in the short term to resume operation of the third and fourth generators at 25 percent capacity.
Taipower’s losses ballooned to nearly NT$17.3 billion in the first quarter of the year, from NT$12.5 billion in the same period last year, its financial statement released earlier this month showed.
The company attributed the losses to lower revenue and higher costs of oil, coal and gas, compared with a year earlier.
As summer electricity rates are to go into effect on June 1, Taipower said it expects higher revenue in the second quarter to help pare its losses.
Overall, the company’s accumulated losses totaled NT$121.6 billion as of March 31, the company said.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese prosecutors suspect that three people successfully smuggled at least one shipment of Nvidia Corp artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China after first exporting them to Japan, people familiar with the matter said. The trio was detained last week by the Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office for allegedly falsifying documents related to exports of Super Micro Computer Inc servers containing advanced Nvidia chips, which the US has barred from sale to China without a license from Washington. The move marked Taiwan’s first public crackdown on AI chip diversion after years of pressure from the US to take a more active role in curtailing
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) employee bonuses are likely to grow more than 30 percent this year, in line with the past few years as the company’s profits continue to set new records, an anonymous source cited TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) as saying yesterday. TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, is committed to taking care of its workers, the source said, citing Wei’s meeting with employees yesterday morning. Wei also expressed gratitude to employees for their contribution to the company’s improving bottom line, the source added. Since 2023, TSMC’s employee bonuses have grown at an annual rate of
RSS