A fire that broke out yesterday morning at Hsin Tao Power Corp (新桃電力) in Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西) has been extinguished, the local fire department said.
The fire did not cause any power supply problems or injuries, it added.
The blaze was brought under control at about 11am, less than two hours after firefighters were dispatched to the scene, and by 11:48am the fire had been extinguished, it said.
Photo courtesy of Hsinchu County Government Fire Bureau
Losses from the fire were estimated at about NT$300 million (US$10.52 million), it said, adding that the cause of the blaze had not yet been determined and was still being investigated.
At a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee later in the day, Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said the fire did not cause any power outages or electricity supply problems in the Hsinchu area, as Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) had activated standby generators to deal with the problem.
Hsin Tao was established in June 1998 as a private company, with the goal of helping to alleviate the long-term power shortage in northern Taiwan.
At full capacity, the generators at the combined-cycle power plant are capable of generating 14.4 million gigawatt-hours per day, supplying 1.2 percent of the nation’s power needs.
The plant supplies Taipower with 9 gigawatt-hours of electricity per day. The fire affected the generation of about 600,000 kilowatt-hours, Taipower said.
Separately, Taipower has requested NT$100 billion to improve grid resilience, following a nationwide power outage on March 3 that affected more than 5 million households.
Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生), Taipower’s interim chairman, on Thursday said that the funding would also be used to reduce overconcentration on certain parts of the grid.
For instance, power plants can distribute electricity separately to heavy users in need of stable power supply, such as science or industrial parks, instead of transmitting it through mainline connections serving households, he said.
The ministry plans to trial the new mechanism at the Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學園區), and will work with the Ministry of Science and Technology to learn about the park’s power consumption patterns to ensure more efficient operations, he added.
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