Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it would support plans by local governments to establish artificial intelligence (AI) data center zones near power plants in northern Taiwan.
If local governments propose such plans, Taipower would work with them to develop the projects, but the state-run utility must assess whether the proposed sites could put too much pressure on local grids and substations, Taipower chairman Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生) said ahead of a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee.
Taipower in September 2023 suspended new applications for data centers with electricity demand exceeding 5 megawatts (MW) north of Taoyuan following a surge in applications, fearing a severe power transmission bottleneck in northern Taiwan.
Photo: CNA
A 5MW data center draws as much electricity as the Shin Kong Life Tower near Taipei Railway Station, while Taipower’s headquarters uses only about 4MW, illustrating the scale of the power demand, Tseng said.
Governments globally usually require large-scale data centers to be near power plants and in some cases force them to generate their own electricity, he said.
Tseng’s remarks came amid reports that the Taoyuan City Government is planning a northern AI computing center near the Datan Power Plant (大潭電廠) in Guanyin District (觀音) to meet demand from businesses, which would require the removal of the 5MW ban.
On Monday, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) inspected power infrastructure in Taoyuan.
The central government is willing to relax the ban, Kung said, but added that new data centers should, where possible, be near power plants.
The ministry would further discuss potential sites and power supply arrangements with Taipower, he said.
The outlook for power supply in northern Taiwan was uncertain in 2023, when three gas-fired generating units at the Datan Power Plant were still under construction and a redevelopment project at the Concord Power Plant (Hsieh-ho Power Plant, 協和電廠) in Keelung’s Zhongshan District (中山) had yet to clear its environmental impact assessment, Tseng said.
However, the power supply outlook has become clearer — with the additional units at Datan going online, while the Concord project cleared its environmental review and construction is set to begin — so Taipower has discussed the issue with the Taoyuan City Government, he said.
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