Tag Archives: hydropower plants

Drought-hit Taiwan plans more water curbs for chip hubs

TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan will tighten curbs on the use of water from June 1 in the major chip making hubs of Hsinchu and Taichung as it battles an island wide drought, if there is no significant rainfall by then, the government said on Wednesday.

Describing the drought as the worst in the island’s history, the economy ministry said in the absence of rain it would raise the drought alert level to its highest, requiring companies in the two science parks to cut water consumption by 17%.

“We need to further tighten water use restrictions in response, in advance of a scenario when rainfall from the plum rain is falling short of expectation,” the ministry said in a statement, referring to the late spring rainy season.

Reservoirs in the island’s central and southern regions were at below 5% of capacity, the ministry said, adding that in its drastic efforts to add supplies it had turned to about 160 wells and seawater desalination plants.

The world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), has factories in both Hsinchu and Taichung.

The chip giant told Reuters it had seen no impact on production and would continue to trim its water use and buy supplies from tanker trucks for some foundries.

Another major chipmaker, United Microelectronics Corp, said it had adopted numerous water-saving measures.

“There is no impact to production,” it added.

No typhoons directly hit the island last year, meaning much less rain. This year rainfall has also been low and the outlook is not good.

Technology companies have long complained about tight water supplies, which became more acute after factories expanded production following a Sino-U.S. trade war.

The drought has also exacerbated problems with electricity management, leading to two major island-wide blackouts in less than a week.

President Tsai Ing-wen pledged this week to look into electricity management, saying the booming economy and extreme weather posed a “great challenge”.

The drought means electricity generated by hydropower plants was insufficient, state-run electricity provider Taipower said.

(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birseland Clarence Fernandez)

More forced power outages in Taiwan as demand spikes amid heatwave, drought

TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan imposed power cuts on Monday evening following a spike in demand amid a heatwave and drought and failure at a power plant, in the second such outage in a week, although far fewer homes were affected.

Power was restored by 1340 GMT, electricity provider Taipower said.

Taiwan, which major chip makers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) call home, already imposed phased blackouts on Thursday following an outage at a plant in the southern city of Kaohsiung.

TSMC, which has factories across the island, said it had seen “no impact so far” from Monday’s power cuts.

Taipower said 660,000 homes were affected by the power cuts, fewer than the roughly 4 million affected last week.

Taipower blamed a rise in demand coincided with the suspension of some generators due to a technical failure at the southern Hsinta Power Plant, the same facility that caused the problem last week.

The state-own company said that the worst drought to hit the island in more than half a century meant electricity generated by hydropower plants was insufficient to meet the unexpected demand on Monday evening, a record high for May.

By 8:40 p.m., only 40% of the supply had been restored in the coal- and gas-fired power plant, Taipower said.

Taiwan’s cabinet offered an apology and urged citizens to stay safe.

Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, said the outages showed the government’s power policy was inadequate and called for Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua to step down.

Taiwan is currently experiencing an unusually hot May with temperatures in parts of the island peaking at around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Gareth Jones, Louise Heavens, Nick Macfie and Raissa Kasolowsky)