More than 400 offshore wind turbines remained undamaged as Typhoon Danas swept across Taiwan yesterday, while electricity was restored to over 450,000 households affected by power outages, according to the Energy Administration and Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower).
Data from the Energy Administration showed that as of the end of May this year, more than 400 wind turbines had been installed in the Taiwan Strait, with 375 connected to the grid, bringing the total grid-connected capacity to over 3 GW.
Photo courtesy of Taipower
The agency said yesterday that it had previously instructed operators to regularly report the status of turbines and power generation conditions as part of safety protocols.
After confirming with the operators, no reports of wind turbine damage have been received so far, it noted after Typhoon Danas swept through western Taiwan earlier in the day.
In 2017, Taiwan and Japan jointly introduced a new typhoon-resistance standard requiring offshore wind turbines to meet Class T specifications, officials with the agency said.
Under this standard, turbines must be able to withstand an average wind speed of 57 meters per second over a 10-minute period — equivalent to a Beaufort scale 17 wind, or a typhoon — prosecutors said, noting that this requirement is stricter than Europe's Class 1A standard.
The turbines are designed to automatically shut down and lock their blades when wind speeds exceed 25 meters per second, preventing excessively rapid spinning which could lead to damage, the officials said.
On the other hand, Taipower said more than 650 electricity poles and three transmission towers collapsed as a result of the typhoon, leaving over 710,000 households without power at the peak of the storm.
As of 6pm yesterday, more than 450,000 households — over 60 percent of those affected — had their electricity restored, the company said.
The hardest-hit areas included Chiayi County and Chiayi City, which together saw more than 250,000 outages, and Tainan, where close to 190,000 households lost power, Taipower said.
Taipower said more than 4,000 personnel were mobilized for emergency repairs.
Typhoon Danas brought severe winds as it made landfall in Chiayi County's Budai Township late Sunday.
Gusts recorded at a manned station in Tainan reached 41.1 meters per second — the third-highest in the station's history — at 10.52pm on Sunday, according to the Central Weather Administration.
Estimates of agricultural losses in the typhoon have risen to at least NT$1.005 billion (US$31 million), the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday.
As of 5pm yesterday, crop damage had covered 9,067 hectares of farmland, or about 1.5 percent of Taiwan's arable land, with an average loss rate of 30 percent, equivalent to 2,750 hectares of total crop failure, it said.
The most affected crop was bananas, with 1,098 hectares damaged at a 35-percent loss rate, resulting in NT$130.22 million in losses.
Other severely impacted crops included pomelos, bamboo shoots, oranges and tangerines.
To help farmers recover from the storm damage, the ministry has activated emergency cash relief and low-interest loan programs for the hardest-hit areas of Tainan, Chiayi County and Chiayi City.
Crops severely affected are exempt from on-site inspections to expedite assistance, the ministry said, and farmers without planting records can use the ministry's disaster photo app to submit visual proof of damage.
___________________
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
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
TRADE-OFF: Beijing seeks to trade a bowl of tempura for a Chinese delicacy, an official said, while another said its promises were attempts to interfere in the polls The government must carefully consider the national security implications of building a bridge connecting Kinmen County and Xiamen, China, the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said yesterday. PCC Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德), who is also a minister without portfolio, made the remarks in a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsu Fu-kuei (徐富癸) asked about China’s proposal of new infrastructure projects to further connect Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties with Xiamen. China unveiled the bridge plan, along with nine other policies for Taiwan, on Sunday, the last day of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) visit
RSS