Officials with Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) said the energy company plans to resume operations at two coal-fired units for at least three months, as the country seeks to support its supply of electricity due to the energy impacts of the Iran war.
The utility on April 6 said two coal-burning generators at the Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township will be restarted. The units, operated by Formosa Plastics Group, were shut down at the end of last year.
The decision comes just weeks after King Ming-hsin, Taiwan’s economy minister, had said the country did not see a need to ramp up coal-fired generation. That was in the early days of the Middle East conflict. Taiwan is among countries importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) for power generation, and supplies of LNG have been impacted by the war’s impacts on shipping.
Taiwan in recent years has seen its need for electricity increase due to an economy being expanded by the high-tech sector, including the semiconductor industry.
“As the development of Middle East war remains unclear, Taipower decided to follow the step of neighboring nations to expand coal-fired power in the short term in a bid to help CPC Corp., Taiwan, strengthen its flexibility of LNG supply,” Taipower said in a statement. Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines have all expanded coal-fired power generation in recent days in response to increasing LNG supply risks, and to avert the impact of inflation on higher power generation costs, the statement said.
Units Returning for at Least Three Months
A Taipower spokesperson told Taiwanese media that the state-run utility plans to run the No. 1 and No. 3 coal-fired units at Mailiao from May through July; the utility added that the timeline could be extended. The units combined have about 1 GW of generation capacity. Taipower in its statement added, “The government is making all-out efforts to dispatch LNG supply. Supply remains sufficient currently, allowing all LNG-fired generators to operate as scheduled.”
Officials have noted that Iran attacked LNG plants in Qatar in March, taking about 17% of that country’s LNG production capacity offline. Analysts have said it may be years before LNG production in the region returns to its pre-war capacity. Taiwan receives about one-third of its LNG from Qatar.
POWER honored a Taiwanese natural gas-fired power plant with a Top Plant award in 2025. The Sun Ba II project is a 1.1-GW combined cycle gas-fired power station in Tainan, in southwestern Taiwan. Read “Power Under Pressure: How a Gas-Fired Plant Has Helped Address Taiwan’s Energy Transition,” from the October 2025 issue of POWER.
Units Idle Since December
The units at Mailiao, despite being idled since December, have valid operating permits and licenses. Yunlin County Magistrate Chang Li-shan said Monday that the ministry proposed allowing the two units to operate for a three-month period, even though the original contract between Taipower and Formosa Plastics has expired.
Chang said the county agreed to conditionally cooperate with the restart based on the national need for electricity, and said her agency will push for stricter environmental controls during the three months. The Mailiao plant, which still has three operating 600-MW coal-fired units in addition to the two scheduled for restart, first entered service in 1999. Two other coal-burning generators were retired in 2022 and 2025, respectively.
The magistrate also said Taiwanese officials will likely review the country’s energy policies in the wake of the Iran conflict, which could include reviving nuclear power. Taiwan shut down its last nuclear reactor in May 2025. Taipower in March of this year applied to restart the Maanshan and Kuosheng plants. Maanshan’s two reactors were taken offline in July 2024 and May 2025. Kuosheng’s reactors were shut down in July 2021 and March 2023.
Taipower on Monday said LNG and domestic natural gas supplies are sufficient at the present time to keep Taiwan’s gas-fired units operating. Natural gas reached a record high 47% share of the country’s power generation in 2025, according to Ember, a UK-based data group, with coal-fired power accounting for 37% of generation. The country’s imports of LNG rose 35% from 2019 through 2024, the largest percentage increase among the five biggest LNG importers over that period, according to Kpler, a commodities intelligence firm.
—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.
