Taiwan Suffers Massive Power Blackout

People walk on a street during a massive power outage in Taipei, Taiwan August 15, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

Taiwan suffered a massive ‘power blackout’ amid sweltering heat on Tuesday afternoon (August 15) which brought chaos to around 7 million households across 17 cities and counties in the nation of 23 million. Areas hardest hit included the cities of Taipei, Taichung and Tainan.

The blackout resulted in about US$3 million worth of losses for 151 companies in industrial parks and export processing zones on the Island. Among the companies affected was iPhone chip assembler and tester Advanced Semiconductor Engineering(ASE). ASE is the world’s largest chip assembler and tester. It is responsible for assembling and testing WiFi, baseband and fingerprint chips for new iPhones.

The state-run Taiwan Power Corporation (Taipower) said that at 4:51 pm, all six units at Taoyuan City’s Datan Power Station tripped, causing a drop of 4 million kilowatts in the electricity supply. Human error causing a two minute cut off in the supply of natural gas to the Datan Station by state-owned oil company CPC Corporation was blamed for the incident.

Taiwan’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Lee Chih Kung, resigned Tuesday night, right after the massive blackout. On Friday, CPC Chairman Chen Chin De also offered to resign to assume responsibility for the nationwide blackout.