Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday unveiled plans to invest NT$564.5 billion (US$18.13 billion) over the next 10 years to enhance the resilience and reliability of its power grids, in a bid to prevent massive outages from affecting industrial production and people’s lives.
The power grid enhancement plan, the largest in the company’s history, came amid growing concern about the state utility’s ability to maintain stable electricity supply after a large-scale blackout in March affected 5.49 million households and halted the operations of semiconductor, cement and petrochemical plants, mostly in Kaohsiung and adjacent areas.
That is aside from the frequent and smaller power interruptions that struck households, stores and factories over the past one to two years due to equipment malfunction or human error.
Photo: Ching Lin, Taipei Times
“The new project aims to enhance power grid resilience by deploying microgrids, rather than relying on major grids for electricity supply,” Taipower acting chairman Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生) told a media briefing.
The multiple dispersed power generation sources and transmission channels would reduce the frequencies of major blackouts as the damage can be better controlled within a region, Taipower president Wang Yao-ting (王耀庭) said.
The large-scale outage in March was an example. The blackout was caused by a switch malfunction at Kaohsiung’s Hsinta Power Plant (興達電廠), which took the facility offline and led to a circuit malfunction at the Longqi Extra High Voltage Substation (龍崎超高壓變電所), causing several power plants in the south to shut down.
To prevent such ripple effects, Taipower plans to reduce interregional power supply by adjusting power allocation and deploying dedicated microgrids to transmit power directly to industrial users in major science parks, Wang said.
Taipower plans to transmit electricity to industrial users in the Hsinchu Science Park from the Tunghsiao Power Plant (通霄電廠) in Miaoli County, while the Taichung Power Plant (台中電廠) would serve users in the Central Taiwan Science Park.
The Hsinta Power Plant will supply power to companies in the Southeastern Taiwan Science Park, while the Datan Power Plant (大潭電廠) will be responsible for users in Taoyuan and New Taipei City industrial parks, the company said.
Those regional grids would also provide a pathway to switch to renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, Wang said.
To provide stable power supply, Taipower plans to add about 52 new and revamped substations, mostly indoor facilities within the next 10 years.
The company plans to upgrade substations and power transmission systems more regularly to boost their reliability, its said.
The Cabinet has approved a capital injection of NT$150 billion for Taipower next year to fund the project, Tseng said.
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