Taiwan’s power consumption is to increase faster at an annual compound growth rate of 2.5 percent over the next five years, mainly driven by an eightfold surge in electricity usage by artificial intelligence (AI) applications, the Energy Administration said yesterday.
The latest forecast represented an increase from the 2 percent growth estimated last year for the period from last year through 2029.
The annual growth rate from this year to 2033 is expected to reach 2.8 percent as new data centers for AI applications become operational, the administration said in a report.
Photo: CNA
The increase in demand comes as Taiwan is expected to undergo a strong economic recovery this year, the semiconductor industry expands capacity amid an AI boom and electric vehicles become more popular, the report said.
AI applications including AI-focused data centers would consume about 2.24 gigawatts (GW) of power in 2028, expanding eightfold from 240 megawatts last year, the administration said.
The latest forecast factored in the expected deployment of new data centers, likely from Apple Inc, Nvidia Corp and Amazon Web Services, in addition to existing centers operated by Google, Microsoft Corp and Nvidia.
Photo: Lin Jin-hua, Taipei Times
“Because of AI, Taiwan has to add 12 to 13 percent more capacity during peak load during the 2024-2029 period,” Energy Administration Director-General Yu Cheng-wei (游振偉) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The administration identified this year to 2028 as the critical period when electricity consumption would spike due to rapid uptakes of AI data centers, large-language AI training models and supercomputer centers, which have not been included in the administration’s forecast before.
Peak load demand is expected to expand to about 4.21GW at night from 3.73GW this year, the administration said.
To ensure stable and sufficient supply, Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) would install more natural-gas generators, enhance electricity grid resilience by revamping electrical substations and expand green energy storage systems, Yu said.
He urged the public to support CPC Corp, Taiwan’s (台灣中油) deployments of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals to regasify LNG before sending it to power stations.
The construction of new LNG terminals was suspended amid environmental concerns.
Taipower projected its reserve margin would improve to 13.3 percent in 2028 from 8.5 percent this year.
That figure is expected to climb to 23.8 percent in 2033, indicating that its electricity capacity would outgrow demand, or capacity adequacy, the state-run utility said.
Asked if the administration would consider restarting or delaying the shutdown of nuclear power plants, Yu said the administration would respect the legislature’s decision on the matter.
Renewable energy is to account for 20 percent of the total power supply in November 2026, rather than the government’s 2025 target, the third time the government has pushed back the goal.
Yu blamed a surge in power consumption for the delays, but said the deployment of renewable energy generation remains on track.
By the end of 2029, green energy is projected to make up about 25 percent of the total power supply, down from 27 percent estimated last year, largely due to increases in total power supply, the report said.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
RSS