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.
RECYCLE: Taiwan would aid manufacturers in refining rare earths from discarded appliances, which would fit the nation’s circular economy goals, minister Kung said Taiwan would work with the US and Japan on a proposed cooperation initiative in response to Beijing’s newly announced rare earth export curbs, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. China last week announced new restrictions requiring companies to obtain export licenses if their products contain more than 0.1 percent of Chinese-origin rare earths by value. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday responded by saying that Beijing was “unreliable” in its rare earths exports, adding that the US would “neither be commanded, nor controlled” by China, several media outlets reported. Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato yesterday also
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said it expects peak season effects in the fourth quarter to continue to boost demand for passenger flights and cargo services, after reporting its second-highest-ever September sales on Monday. The carrier said it posted NT$15.88 billion (US$517 million) in consolidated sales last month, trailing only September last year’s NT$16.01 billion. Last month, CAL generated NT$8.77 billion from its passenger flights and NT$5.37 billion from cargo services, it said. In the first nine months of this year, the carrier posted NT$154.93 billion in cumulative sales, up 2.62 percent from a year earlier, marking the second-highest level for the January-September
‘DRAMATIC AND POSITIVE’: AI growth would be better than it previously forecast and would stay robust even if the Chinese market became inaccessible for customers, it said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its full-year revenue growth outlook after posting record profit for last quarter, despite growing market concern about an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble. The company said it expects revenue to expand about 35 percent year-on-year, driven mainly by faster-than-expected demand for leading-edge chips for AI applications. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker in July projected that revenue this year would expand about 30 percent in US dollar terms. The company also slightly hiked its capital expenditure for this year to US$40 billion to US$42 billion, compared with US$38 billion to US$42 billion it set previously. “AI demand actually
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
RSS