Massive power blackout in Taiwan after accident at major plant

The outage was caused by a malfunction at a major power generation plant

Taiwan’s capital Taipei also lost power (AFP via Getty Images)

Taiwan is gradually restoring power supply, the state-run power operator said on Thursday, after much of the island’s south and five million households were hit by an outage caused by a malfunction at a major power generation plant.

Hydro and other power plants were brought on line to provide electricity, said Taipower, which blamed a problem with a transformer at the Hsinta power plant in the southern city of Kaohsiung for a trip at an ultra-high voltage substation.

The major coal-fired station provides about a seventh of Taiwan’s power.

“I am very sorry for this major loss of electricity, and am extremely apologetic for the inconvenience caused, especially for the south,” Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua told reporters.

Asked whether the plant had been hacked, cabinet spokesman Lo Ping-cheng said authorities could not rule out any cause.

“It all needs further proof and investigation, which requires evidence.”

The cut affected about a third of Taiwan’s power supply, hitting about 5 million households, Mr Wang said, adding it was not immediately clear what triggered the problem.

Back-up power supply was at 24 per cent at the time of the incident, Mr Wang said, adding that it was not triggered by insufficient supply, the root cause of major outages in May, when Taiwan was grappling with drought.

The Hsinchu science park, home to many large semiconductor companies such as TSMC, said it did not suffer outages.

The southern Tainan Science Park, where TSMC also has plants, said it experienced a sudden drop of voltage in the morning that did not affect production, however.

TSMC said “power dips” at some of its wafer fabrication plants ran from about 400 milliseconds to more than a second. The company later said there had been no impact on operations.

Some parts of northern Taiwan, including the capital Taipei, also lost power. President Tsai Ing-wen has ordered an investigation, her office said.

Normal service has resumed on the high-speed rail line between north and south after three trains were affected, the transport ministry said.

After last year’s two major outages brought criticism for the government, President Tsai has vowed to scrutinise electricity management.

Reuters