A government-ordered reduction of air conditioning in public buildings could be lifted after a major power plant resumes operations on Sunday, the Executive Yuan said yesterday.
The repair of a transmission tower in Yilan County for the Ho-Ping power plant, which was downed by Typhoon Nesat on July 29, would be completed by Sunday, and that could bring an end to two weeks of contingency power-saving measures in government buildings, the Executive Yuan said.
The loss of the tower reduced electricity supply by 1.3 gigawatts, or about 4 percent of operating reserves, leading the Cabinet to announce that it wanted the air conditioning in government buildings turned off between 1pm and 3pm on weekdays.
While there was speculation that the energy-conservation measure might be lifted today after a major power generator in Kaohsiung went online, Premier Lin Chuan (林全) said the Cabinet had not made a decision.
The two-hour suspension of air conditioning in government buildings could save between 200,000 kilowatts (kW) to 300,000kW of electricity, while the sudden resumption of air-conditioning could risk a power shortage, Lin said.
While a newly constructed generator at the Talin power plant in Kaohsiung, which has a 200,000kW capacity, could begin operations today, its stability is untested and it might have to be and adjusted as part of the activiation process, which is why the Cabinet is not yet ready to lift its power-saving measure, Lin said.
“If the energy conservation measure between 1pm and 3pm continues, and if the Talin plant is successfully started and contributes an additional 200,000kW of electricity, the [power] issue should be stable,” Lin said.
“We would be able to survive a crisis unless a major power generation facility malfunctions. The issue can certainly be solved next week after the transmission tower is repaired,” he said.
Asked about the operation on Monday of a diesel-fired generator at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮), Lin said the generator had only been started as part of the routine maintenance of the mothballed plant.
“The generator has little capacity to contribute. It should not be taken seriously,” Lin said, in response to speculation that the activation might pave the way to restarting idle nuclear reactors, including those at the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Shihmen District (石門) and the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in Wanli District (萬里).
The running of the diesel generator was a routine operation to ensure its functionability, and the little electricity it produced had been sent to the national grid, Executive Yuan spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said, reiterating that there was no plan to reactivate the two idle reactors.
There should be no risk of a power shortage because active power plants are functioning well, even though the nation’s operating reserve has been at the “red level” since Monday, Hsu said.
Red is the second-highest level on Taiwan Power Co’s five-color scale.
However, the public should still try to conserve energy during peak demand hours, he said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
RSS