An electricity blackout that affected nearly 5.5 million households and businesses across Taiwan on Thursday was caused by a “human error” that resulted in an equipment malfunction at a power plant managed by the state-run Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower), Taiwan government officials announced late Thursday local time.
Taipower’s outage began on the morning of March 3, disrupting electricity supplies to 5.49 million residences and businesses across the independent island nation of Taiwan. The blackout “was caused by human error in operating a switchgear at Hsinta Power Plant in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan at 9:07 a.m. causing the power grid to malfunction,” Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) revealed on March 3, citing an initial probe into the incident by Taipower.
CNA relayed details of Taipower’s preliminary investigation report on Thursday, writing:
By 3 p.m., power supplies were restored to 4.42 million, or 80 percent of households affected. …
The blackout hit southern Taiwan particularly hard, with power in 17,600 households in Yunlin and Kaohsiung still not fully restored as of 9 p.m.
Linyuan and Dashe industrial parks in Kaohsiung were severely affected by the power outage, with power supplies to 12 factories in Linyuan still disrupted Thursday evening.
Taiwan’s industrial parks are home to several semiconductor manufacturers, most of which produce microchips on behalf of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC). The TSMC accounts for over 90 percent of the world’s microchip supply, making its industrial output vital to the global economy.
Taipower’s outage on March 3 caused a number of Taiwan’s semiconductor foundries to temporarily halt or curb production. CNA reported the following disruptions to Taiwan’s extremely lucrative microchip industry on Thursday:
Contract chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) was one of the major companies that reported an interruption of operations, saying a voltage drop had brought production lines to a halt at its plant in the Tainan Science Park during the widespread power outage, which occurred shortly after 9 a.m.
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In the neighboring city of Kaohsiung, flexible printed circuit board maker Flexium Interconnect Inc. said production at its plant in the science park there had ground to a halt due to the power outage, while Chang Wah Technology Co. said its plant was running on a backup generator.
UMC announced later Thursday that most equipment at its Tainan plant had successfully come back online, adding production at the site had resumed.
“The Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) administration, which manages the Kaohsiung and Tainan science parks, said the latter had suffered a power supply drop, which had affected some of the companies there,” CNA further reported on March 3.
Microchip foundries require vast amounts of both electricity and water to function. Some such factories in Kaohsiung were affected by water supply disruptions linked to Taipower’s outage on Thursday. Other companies were running on backup generators as of Thursday evening, according to STSP officials.
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