Taipei, July 4 (CNA) Power supplies will be under their greatest pressure next week and the situation will only ease after mid-July, when two new generators of a power plant in Taoyuan, northern Taiwan, are brought online, the state-owned Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) said Tuesday.
Power supplies are usually tight in July when temperatures spike, and Taipower has forecast that the operating reserve margin this week will hover between 5.78 percent and 10.17 percent, benefiting from lower temperatures in the wake of afternoon thunderstorms in recent days.
Under Taipower's electricity warning system, an operating reserve margin above 10 percent is a healthy green light, and an orange alert flashes when the power reserve falls below 6 percent, a red alert signals that it has dropped to less than 900,000 kW, and a black alert means it has fallen to less than 500,000 kW, making power rationing necessary.
But with the gradual rising of summer temperatures, and the two generators at Dah Tam Power Plant in Taoyuan not ready to start generating until after mid-July, Taipower has estimated that power supplies next week will face heavy pressure.
Faced with this plight, Taipower Chairman Chu Wen-cheng (朱文成) said the company will strengthen its load capacity management to ensure stable power supplies.