Taiwan power outage affected 151 companies, caused $3 mln in damages

ChipMOS TECHNOLOGIES

17/08/2017 09:12

TAIPEI, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Taiwan's massive power blackout 
on Tuesday resulted in about $3 million worth of losses for 151 
companies in industrial parks and export processing zones on the 
island, the economics ministry said on Thursday.  
    The government plans to release a figure for the overall 
economic cost of the blackout in the next few days, a ministry 
spokesman said. 
    The five-hour long blackout caused estimated losses of 
NT$87.47 million ($2.89 million) and affected millions of homes 
as well as offices and companies. The outage prompted an apology 
from President Tsai Ing-wen.    
    Advanced Semiconductor Engineering  2311.TW  told Reuters 
the power outage resulted in a preliminary estimate of $500,000 
to $800,000 worth of losses for the company.  
    However, the company does not expect the losses to have an 
impact on its August revenues as it plans to undergo overtime 
work to compensate, a company spokesman said.  
    The blackout was caused by "structural problems" and human 
error involving the replacement of equipment at state-owned gas 
supplier CPC Corp, which ultimately affected the operations of a 
power plant owned by state-run Taiwan Power Co, CPC Corp said.  
    The misstep caused six generators at the plant to stop 
working.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N1L14HM 
    The Ministry of Economics Affairs and Taiwan Power Co said 
in separate statements late on Wednesday that 5.92 million homes 
were affected by the outage and that the power company would 
offer electricity fee deductions totalling NT$360 million. Once 
approved by the ministry, the deductions would be made in the 
next round of electricity bills.  
    Government officials said a task force would be set up to 
investigate the cause of the outage.  
    Taiwan Power Vice President Lan Hung Wei said in an 
interview with Reuters that the company was making improvements 
to overall oversight of operations. 
    "For this incident, I think it's a problem of implementing 
the work standard operational procedure... The engineering and 
site operational management needs to be improved. We will work 
to improve these areas," Lan said.   
    Taiwan Power also hoped the government's green energy 
policies and the company's complementary green energy measures 
could partially help resolve Taiwan's otherwise chronic 
electricity supply shortages, Lan said. 
    Taiwanese companies have long complained of shortages in 
water and electricity supply that affect their operations.     
    Leading technology companies on the industrialized island 
nevertheless reported little impact from the outage this week.  
    While Advanced reported some potential costs, Taiwan 
Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd  2330.TW  said its 
operations were not affected, as did electronics manufacturer 
Pegatron Corp  4938.TW .  
         
($1 = 30.2830 Taiwan dollars) 
 
 (Reporting by Jess Macy Yu; Editing by Christian Schmollinger) 
 ((JessicaMacy.Yu@thomsonreuters.com; +886 2 2500-4882;)) 
 
Keywords: TAIWAN POWER/OUTAGES