Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) yesterday urged President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to convene a national affairs conference to discuss a responsible and viable electricity policy.
Widespread power outages on Thursday affected more than 5.49 million households and businesses nationwide.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs that evening said that an initial investigation by Taiwan Power (Taipower) showed that human error at Kaohsiung’s Hsinta Power Plant (興達電廠) led to the blackouts.
Photo: Lee Hui-chou, Taipei Times
Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) on Friday said during a Legislative Yuan question-and-answer session that an outage would not occur again within the next year.
Chu said that Wang’s assurances were empty, and the issues that led to the outages could not be easily rectified even if Wang or Taipower chairman Yang Wei-fuu (楊偉甫) resigned, as the problem is with the government’s energy policy.
Taipower has rejected requests from small to medium-sized enterprises applying to use more power due to inadequate supply, he said, adding that the government cannot ignore the issue.
Photo: Liu Hsiao-hsin, Taipei Times
Chu said that he supported Hon Hai Precision Industry founder Terry Gou’s (郭台銘) call to hold a national affairs conference on energy policy, urging Tsai to host the discussion.
If Tsai is willing to set aside political partisanship, the KMT is willing to participate in such a conference and discuss how to formulate a viable and responsible energy policy with the Democratic Progressive Party, Chu said.
In related news, households in the so-called “golden zone,” or zone H, were mostly unaffected by the blackouts, Taipower said.
The state-run utility divides Taipower subscribers into nine zones, coded A to I, with households near locations of national defense or transportation and communications significance, as well as government agencies and hospitals, grouped as zones H, I and J, which are excluded from power cuts for rationing, the agency said.
The exclusion is to ensure the smooth operation of essential services, with households in zone H sharing the same power supply feeder as nearby transportation hubs, hospitals or government agencies, it said.
However, some people reported that despite living across from a hospital, they were affected by power outages.
The agency said that only households sharing the same electricity feeder as essential facilities are categorized as zone H, and being in the vicinity of these facilities does not guarantee exclusion from power rationing.
Industries that use ultra-high-voltage electricity transmission are categorized as zone I, while power distribution feeders at power plants fall into zone J, neither of which include residential properties, the agency added.
People can verify which zone their household is in by checking the categorization listed on their electricity bill, it said.
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