The Control Yuan on Wednesday censured state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) for mass blackouts that occurred across the nation for two days in May 2021 and on March 3 last year, which were caused by human error and grid failure at a power plant in Kaohsiung.
Eight officials were impeached and the cases are to be forwarded to the Judicial Yuan’s Disciplinary Court for adjudication, a statement issued by Tsai Chung-yi (蔡崇義) and two other Control Yuan members said.
The first power outage, on May 13, 2021, occurred when a contract worker from Taipower Kaoping Power Supply Branch made an error while conducting tests related to the expansion of an ultra-high-voltage substation in Kaohsiung’s Lujhu District (路竹), which led to a voltage drop that forced the Hsinta Power Plant in the city’s Yongan District (永安) to shut down, the statement said.
Photo: Lin Ching-hua, Taipei Times
As a result, Taipower was forced to implement six rounds of rolling power cuts over five hours that affected about 4.15 million households, the Control Yuan said.
A motion had been passed to impeach four former Taipower executives deemed responsible for the blackouts, including Wu Cing-mu (吳清木), then-head of Taipower Kaoping Power Supply Branch, for negligence, it said.
That instance of human negligence cost Taipower about NT$470 million (US$15 million) in compensation to the affected households and businesses, which took the form of discounted electricity bills, the Control Yuan said.
Four days later, on May 17, the malfunction of a generator at the Hsinta Power Plant occurred at about midday, causing another outage, and Taipower again implemented rolling blackouts that affected about 1 million households, it said.
Following its review, the Control Yuan censured Taipower and said it had determined that the blackouts were unnecessary because only one unit in the generator had failed.
It also censured Taipower for negligence during its annual maintenance at the Hsinta Power Plant that caused the lights to go off for close to 5.5 million households on March 3 last year.
The power cut began at 9:16am after a problem at the power plant and power was not fully restored until 9:31pm, affecting 5.49 million households and costing Taipower about NT$760 million in compensation.
Four former executives at the Hsinta Power Plant were impeached because of that blackout, the Control Yuan said.
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