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.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
RSS