The Mailiao Power Plant () is a coal-fired power plant in Formosa Mai-Liao Industrial Park, Mailiao Township,

Yunlin County Yunlin is a Counties of Taiwan, county in Regions of Taiwan, western Taiwan. Yunlin County borders the Taiwan Strait to the west, Nantou County to the east, Changhua County to the north at the Zhuoshui River, and Chiayi County to the south at th ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. With a total installed capacity of 4,200 MW, the plant is Taiwan's third largest coal-fired power plant after Taichung Power Plant and Hsinta Power Plant.

History

The groundbreaking ceremony for the power plant construction was held on 12 December 1996. Invited to the ceremony were Vice Premier

Hsu Li-teh Hsu Li-teh (; born 6 August 1931) is a Taiwanese politician. He was the List of vice premiers of the Republic of China, Vice Premier of the Republic of China from 1993 to 1997. Education After graduating from Cheng Kung Senior High School in ...

, Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Chih-kang and President of

Legislative Yuan The Legislative Yuan () is the unicameral legislature of the Republic of China (Taiwan) located in Taipei. The Legislative Yuan is composed of 113 members, who are directly elected for four-year terms by people of the Taiwan Area through a ...

Liu Sung-pan. Commissioned in June 1999 for its first two units, the power plant is the first independent power producer power plant after Taipower ended the electricity supply monopoly in Taiwan in 1994.

Architecture

The power plant is located on a 87 hectares of area made of reclaimed land. Its smokestacks have a height of 250 metre

Ownership

The power plant is owned by the Mai-Liao Power Corporation (MPC) and Formosa Petrochemical Corporation (FPCC).

Generation units

The power plant consists of five 600 MW pulverized coal-fired units owned by the MPC and two 600 MW pulverized coal-fired co-generation units owned by the FPCC. The plant is designed for base load service with the capability for daily startup and shutdown operation per instructions from Taipower's dispatcher center.

Components

The coal handling system of the power plant has a truck unloading station capacity of 600 tonnes/hour and its flexible sidewall conveyor capacity of 800 tonnes/hour. It gets its coal directly from

cargo ship A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's List of seas, seas and Ocean, oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. ...

s docking at its Mai-Liao Industrial Port, next to the power plant. The coal is stored in coal domes in which each dome is 120 meter in diameter, 60 meter in height and 180,000 tons in capacity. The cooling system for the plant comes directly from the sea water with a total usage amount of 200,000 tons per day.

Events

2012

On 20 June 2012 at 11:55 am, the power plant tripped during the Tropical Storm Talim. This caused the shut down of 54 out of 66 units of the Yunlin petrochemical complex.

2016

On 1 August 2016, a generating unit of the power plant broke down, disrupting the supply of power.

2017

On 7 October 2017, the no. 1 generation unit of the power plant was shut down due to pipe rupture, causing 600 MW of power loss.

References

{{Power plants of Taiwan 1999 establishments in Taiwan Buildings and structures in Yunlin County Coal-fired power stations in Taiwan Energy infrastructure completed in 1999