Taiwan Says Power Issues Prevent New Large Data Centers in North

(Bloomberg) -- Taiwan has stopped approving data centers that are bigger than 5 MW north of Taoyuan, as there is an insufficient power supply in the region.  

While the island as a whole doesn’t have an electricity shortage, there’s a bottleneck in the north, which is reliant on other areas for supply and needs more grid infrastructure and new sources of electricity to meet rising demand, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a Facebook post. There have been no approvals of large data centers in the north since September last year, local media reported, citing the chairman of Taiwan Power Company.   

Taiwan last month controversially shut one of two remaining nuclear reactors as it seeks to free itself of the technology by 2025, and the northern region’s atomic power stations have already closed.

The move – driven by concerns following the 2011 Fukushima meltdown in Japan – has made energy security a key issue on the island, which also houses energy-guzzling chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which supplies Apple and Nvidia Corporation.

Other grids in the region have voiced similar concerns about supplying heavy electricity users. Singapore imposed a ban on new data centers in 2019 because of shortage concerns but lifted it in 2022.

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Taiwan should “prioritize building data centers with a power consumption of more than 5 megawatts in the central and southern region where there is sufficient renewable energy and large sources of energy,” Taipower said. That will allow industries to “reduce carbon emissions and enhance international competitiveness while matching the load with the power supply side,” the utility said.