Gas-fired generators to be on grid when nuclear reactor exits: Wang

Taipei, May 3 (CNA) More natural-gas generators will be connected to the grid after one of two reactors at the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County retires this July, according to Economic Affairs Minister Wang Mei-hua (王美花).

The two reactors of the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant, also called the Third Nuclear Power Plant, started operating respectively in July 1984 and May 1985 and are set to be decommissioned in July 2024 and May 2025 after operating for 40 years in accordance with the law.

In an online interview with the Liberty Times that was released on Friday, Wang said that two gas-fired generator units in the Datan Power Plant in Taoyuan and a gas-fired unit by Sunba Power Corporation, an independent power producer in Tainan, will start to generate power as the first reactor of the Third Nuclear Power Plant goes off the grid.

"The combined power generated by the three gas-fired units will be greater than that lost due to the decommissioning of the first reactor of the Third Nuclear Power Plant this year," she said.

Wang said that since 2016, when President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) first took office, generators with a combined installed capacity of 17,000 megawatts have been approved to be built, "as it was known from the beginning that the nuclear power plants would be decommissioned one by one and coal-fired plants would be retired."

The new generators have been necessary because industrial investment, especially in the semiconductor industry, has increased in recent years and more power will be needed as those factories are built, Wang added.

The minister took issue with criticism against the administration's energy policy, focusing mostly in its "nuclear-free homeland" policy.

"You can't blame the [zero-nuclear] energy policy whenever there is a power outage that has nothing to do with a power shortage," Wang argued.

There are many causes that could negatively affect the power supply, she said. "For example, the earthquake in Hualien in April broke some generator units, but those were temporary and were quickly repaired."

The minister said power distribution system involves various switches and malfunctions are surely to happen, just as anywhere else in the world.

"I would argue that Taipower is probably the most efficient in the world in terms of in its ability to restore the power in no time."

Critics contend that the delayed ramp-up of renewable energy, delays in building a LNG storage terminal, the blocking of a 600 MW gas-fired plant in the Tainan area, and the planned closing of coal-fired generators in Mailiao could lead to shortages in peak summer months in 2025.