Taipei Times
Date: Mar 17, 2018
By: Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

As air pollution has spiraled into a political issue, upgrading a coal-fired power plant

A graphic mock-up shows Taiwan Power Co’s coal-fired Shenao Power Plant development in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District after reconstruction.  Photo courtesy of Taiwan Power Co

seems to many a retrogressive move for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and an academic researcher yesterday said that the project might result in a backlash from local businesses.

The controversial Shenao (深澳) Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳) is expected to start operating again in 2025. Once completed, it would be the third operational power plant in the north of Taiwan, along with the city’s Linkou (林口) Power Plant and Keelung’s Hsieh-ho (協和) Power Plant.

State-run Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) plan to upgrade the plant, which stopped operations in 2007, had passed an environmental impact assessment (EIA) in 2006. Due to changes to the project, Taipower filed an environmental impact analysis report with the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) in May last year.    [FULL  STORY]