Probe into blackout in Taiwan
Print Edition
AUTHORITIES in Taiwan are investigating a massive power blackout that hit businesses and residential homes on the heavily industrialized island amid sweltering heat.
The island’s leader Tsai Ing-wen apologized for the crisis which left millions of homes without power and hit offices and factories on Tuesday.
The worst appeared to be over by yesterday afternoon, with power restored and little impact on Taiwan’s leading technology manufacturers.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to Apple Inc, said its operations were not affected, as did electronics manufacturer Pegatron Corp.
ChipMOS Technologies Inc said the outage did not have a big impact on its operations.
The local government promised to seek an external review of the island’s power supply network. Officials said a task force would be set up to investigate the cause of the outage.
“The strength and stability of Taiwan’s power grid requires a large-scale inspection, and also examination by outside investigators,” government spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung told reporters.
Residents complained as temperatures hovered around 32 degrees Celsius, while the blackout caused havoc as restaurants and small businesses were left without power, traffic lights stopped working and elevators stalled.
The blackout was caused by “structural problems” and human error involving the replacement of equipment, which ultimately affected the operations of a Taiwan Power Co power plant, gas supplier CPC Corp said at a press conference. It said it would fully compensate Taiwan Power Co and take responsibility, although it did not provide an estimate of the costs involved.
Taiwan Power Co said the outage at its plant in the northwestern city of Taoyuan caused six generators to stop working.
Government spokesman Hsu said the question of whether the chairmen of Taiwan Power Co and CPC Corp should step down should be answered after they tended to their responsibilities.
The administrative deputy chief for economics, Shen Jong-chin, temporarily assumed the duties of economics affairs chief Chih-Kung Lee, who resigned over the incident.
The blackout was Taiwan’s most severe since the 1999 Jiji earthquake, Taiwan Power Co said.
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