The shutdown of the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant’s No. 1 reactor will not affect the stability of Taiwan’s power supply this summer, as other generators have resumed operations after annual maintenance, Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) said yesterday.
The nuclear reactor at the plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里), which was licensed to operate until the end of the year, went offline early because storage pools for spent fuel rods are full and the city government refused a Taipower application to use open-air dry-storage facilities. This lowered Taiwan’s energy capacity by 985 megawatts (MW).
“We still project that the nation will remain in the ‘green’ zone for reserve capacity for the next two months, despite likely increases in power usage amid a work-from-home trend,” Taipower spokesman Chang Ting-shu (張廷舒) said.
The company said that major power plants had completed annual maintenance, while new sources — such as the 181MW Cigu Solar Plant in Tainan — have joined the grid.
“We are going to keep working to shave the peaks and fill the valleys,” said Chang, an analogy for reducing the peak electricity use, the most likely reason for blackouts.
However, Nuclear Science and Technology Association chairman Chen Pu-tsan (陳布燦) said that it was a mistake to shut down the reactor early and claims that the 985MW would not be missed are incorrect.
“To say that Taiwan is not lacking in electricity is nonsense: We had two blackouts in May ... one while reserve energy capacity was ‘green,’” Chen said.
Increased reliance sources of renewable energy — including solar power — would challenge the grid’s stability, said Chen, who was previously a Taipower vice president. “Those are not power sources you can control.”
The spent fuel at the decommissioned Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門) and the shuttered Guosheng reactor are still in “wet storage,” pools that need to be cooled to keep the rods safe.
Eventually, the rods must be moved to “dry storage,” management of which is a passive operation, and considered a safer, longer-term option.
“We are working toward an indoor dry-storage plan, which we hope to complete by about 2028,” Chang said.
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