Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is looking into potential sites to store enough coal to generate up to 50 days of electricity in the event Taiwan faces a blockade or war, a source said on Saturday.
Government regulations require the utility to store up to 30 days of coal, but Taipower generally maintains a reserve of 40 to 42 days.
However, following China’s drills in August last year, during which it imposed a partial blockade around Taiwan proper, the company might further increase its coal storage to 50 days, the source said.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan Power Co
Another reason is rising coal inventories due to the nation’s transition to clean energy, as well as some coal-fired power plants shutting down during winter to reduce air pollution, they said.
“If a coal shipment arrives at a port and existing stocks have not been depleted, this causes port congestion,” the source said.
“However, Taipower has only just started looking for storage sites and it would take at least a year to conduct a feasibility study on the plan,” the source said.
The company wants to find a site near a coal-fired power plant, particularly one like the ultra-supercritical plant in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the source said.
“Another option would be Taichung Power Plant. It will decommission its coal burners and switch to natural gas, but the coal burners would be used as a backup if the need arises,” the source said.
However, Taipower would not restart coal plants in areas where they have caused public discontent, and any restarted plants would use ash ponds to reduce the amount of airborne pollutants, the source said.
Taipower hopes that the central government would subsidize the expenses that would arise from expanding coal storage capacity, especially as the plan would improve national security, the source added.
Separately, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油), which maintains stocks of liquefied natural gas (LNG), said it has a combined stock of 100 days of LNG across all of its facilities nationwide — exceeding the mandated minimum of 90 days.
However, to improve energy security, the company would install additional storage tanks at receiving stations, including those at Taoyuan’s Guantang Industrial Park (觀塘工業區), Kaohsiung’s Yongan Port (永安) and the terminal in Taichung.
The additional tanks would increase storage capacity at each facility from 16 days to 24 days, the company said.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS