Despite increasing demand for electricity and delays in approving new power generation facilities, Taiwan’s power supply is “not a cause for concern,” and there are no plans to continue operating the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County beyond 2025, Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said yesterday.
The remarks came after Tamkang University economics professor Liao Huei-chu (廖惠珠) called for an extension of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s commission, as new facilities at Singda Power Plant in Kaohsiung, Taichung Power Plant and Hsieh-ho Power Plant in Keelung are still in the environmental review phase.
The three natural gas power projects have been delayed by local government assessments and environmental impact assessments, raising fears of a possible shortfall in energy capacity, Liao said.
Photo: CNA
“There are a lot of hoops to jump through when it comes to the environmental assessment process, but the process is necessary,” Wang said at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee.
“There are no plans to extend the tenure of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant. Our power supply is secure to the end of the year and we will have rolling discussions to make sure it remains that way,” she added.
Speaking to the Taipei Times by telephone, Liao yesterday said that keeping the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant running would be “the lesser of two evils.”
“If demand for electricity outstrips supply, it is better to keep the [plant] running than to keep burning dirty coal,” Liao said.
Electricity demand is set to increase with hotter summers and the trend of businesses returning to Taiwan to invest in production facilities, Liao said.
Taiwan could also raise its electricity rates, which have been frozen at NT$2.6 per kilowatt-hour since September 2018, Liao added.
“It is one of the cheapest rates for power in the world,” Liao said, “If we let prices go up, usage will naturally go down, but it is a political decision to keep power cheap.”
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) manager Chang Ting-shu (張廷抒) told the Taipei Times that the natural gas power projects would be less polluting than coal-fired power plants, but local environmental concerns remain.
“For instance, building a receiving tank by the coastline could have an impact like any large construction,” Chang said.
The power usage capacity is at “green,” meaning that there is an operating reserve of 10 percent and an operating reserve margin of 15 percent, he said.
“Imagine a basketball team. The players on the court represent the capacity being used, the players on the bench ready to go in the game represent the operating reserve and all the players that are not on the court represent the operating reserve margin,” Chang said.
To assure stability, Taipower has kept some older coal-burning plants that local authorities and environmental groups said should be decommissioned on standby, he said.
“Most of the time they are not used,” he added.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to