Taiwan Blackout Seen Pressuring Tsai to Review Energy Policy
- Government may need to rethink anti-nuclear stance: BI analyst
- Policy changes to be dictated by level of public pressure: Hsu
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen.
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A blackout in Taiwan Tuesday that struck about 6 million households may force President Tsai Ing-wen to reconsider her anti-nuclear stance and open the country’s electrical grid to outside investment.
The island’s energy security and the feasibility of Tsai’s plan to phase-out atomic reactors by 2025 and reduce coal-fired generation is coming under greater scrutiny, BMI Research said in an Aug. 16 note. So far Tsai hasn’t backed down on promises to shut the country’s remaining nuclear power stations, but public pressure could determine the extent to which policies change, according to Gloria Hsu, a professor at National Taiwan University.