• Kuosheng Nuclear Power Plant Unit No. 2's operating license will expire on March 14, marking the end of its 40-year operating life, and the unit will be decommissioned in accordance with the law.

Kuosheng Nuclear Power Plant Unit No. 2's operating license will expire tomorrow (March 14), marking the end of its 40-year operating life, and the unit will be decommissioned in accordance with the law. Regarding the power supply situation post-shutdown, Taipower explained that it has made all proper arrangements for handling the power supply; the company has planned its units’ annual maintenance and power generation schedules, and will employ a combination of continuous grid integration of renewable energy sources, flexible use of pumped storage hydroelectricity, and refined scheduling strategies for conventional units, along with time-of-use pricing, auxiliary services, and demand responses, to ensure a stable power supply in the future.

According to Taipower, in response to the shutdown of Kuosheng Nuclear Power Plant Unit No. 2, it started early planning for the annual maintenance its other units last year. Additionally, the wind power generation capacity during the winter is often more than 1 gigawatt (GW), which also allows for the planning of early annual maintenance. By the end of March, several medium and large units will be back in operation, including Dalin Unit No. 2 and Tongxiao Unit No. 2, for a total of 3.25 GW. By the end of April, Linkou Unit No. 1 and Tongxiao Unit No. 3 will be back in operation for a total of 3.86 GW, which can fully cover the power supply needs. This year, Tongxiao’s small unit and Datan Unit No.8 will also be brought online, adding a total of 1.3 GW, and the total capacity of these units exceeds that of the decommissioned 985 megawatt Kuosheng Nuclear Power Plant Unit No. 2.

Taipower explained that with the substantial increase in renewable energy, the electricity dispatch model has also evolved accordingly. At present, the solar power generation capacity is often more than 5 GW during the daytime and can relieve pressure on the power supply during daytime hours, whereas the hydropower can also be reserved for use at night. In response to the shift of the system's power supply to nighttime peaks, Taipower has also flexibly dispatched energy storage batteries, high water level conventional hydropower operations, pumped storage hydropower regulation, and gas units to quickly start and stop energy. Moreover, it has combined new time-of-use pricing, demand response, and other demand-side management measures which are expected to reduce nighttime peaks by 1 GW this year.

Taipower further explained that hydropower plants are mainly concentrated in the central part of Taiwan, and the shift to hydropower units usually occurs at nighttime in conjunction with the peaks, so that when the peaks are lower, the time is shorter. Thus, the hydropower generation capacity can be concentrated, and the downstream hydropower facilities can be used to regulate water consumption before supplying water for the people's daily use, satisfying both power generation and the people's daily use of water. The pumped storage units (about 2.6 GW) have also changed to pumping water and storing power during the daytime and releasing water for power generation at night. The overall mode of operation for hydropower has been gradually adjusted to support only short-term nighttime peak power demand, and it can provide a total of about 4.4 GW of power supply capacity. Moreover, the pumped storage units, together with the gas units, are simultaneously loaded to support system power supply, which can guarantee nighttime power supply.

Some people are worried that Taiwan will be short of electricity in the future, but Taipower asserted that it has made long-term plans focusing on two aspects: power source development and grid construction. In terms of power source development, Taipower is actively promoting gas-fired generation units that reduce carbon emissions by half, and is currently working on gas-fired generation projects in Datan, Hsinta, Taichung, Tongxiao II, and Dahlin, etc. The new capacity of large units is still greater than that of units that have been removed from service. Taipower has also adjusted its annual maintenance plan for existing units in response to extreme weather conditions and shortened the maintenance schedule. Furthermore, grid construction has continued to be strengthened, with a total of NT$100.9 billion invested in distribution equipment improvement over the past five years. The number of outages caused by external forces, natural disasters or equipment failures has also gradually reduced from 15,295 in 2015 to 7,924 last year (2022), a decrease of nearly 50%, significantly lowering the number of outages of all kinds.

Spokesperson: Wu Chin-Chung, Chief Engineer

Telephone: (02) 2366-6271 / 0910-192-766

Email: u850899@taipower.com.tw

Contact Person: Chou Fang-Cheng, Director of Electricity Dispatch Department

Telephone: (02) 2366-6600 / 0952-810-417

Email: u027007@taipower.com.tw