By Meryl Kao / Staff reporter
Add TT as Preferred Source
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it would support plans by local governments to establish artificial intelligence (AI) data center zones near power plants in northern Taiwan.If local governments propose such plans, Taipower would work with them to develop the projects, but the state-run utility must assess whether the proposed sites could put too much pressure on local grids and substations, Taipower chairman Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生) said ahead of a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee.Taipower in September 2023 suspended new applications for data centers with electricity demand exceeding 5 megawatts (MW) north of Taoyuan following a surge in applications, fearing a severe power transmission bottleneck in northern Taiwan.
Taiwan Power Co chairman Tseng Wen-sheng speaks at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei yesterday.
A 5MW data center draws as much electricity as the Shin Kong Life Tower near Taipei Railway Station, while Taipower’s headquarters uses only about 4MW, illustrating the scale of the power demand, Tseng said.Governments globally usually require large-scale data centers to be near power plants and in some cases force them to generate their own electricity, he said.
