Court revokes Taichung Power Plant project review
By Esme Yeh / Staff reporter
The Taipei High Administrative Court yesterday revoked the conclusion of the environmental impact assessments (EIA) for Taichung Power Plant’s second-phase gas-fired generator project.
The project on Oct. 30, 2024, passed its initial EIA review with the conclusion that a second-stage EIA review was not required.
That galvanized local residents from Changhua and Nantou counties and Taichung to file an administrative lawsuit against the Ministry of Environment via lawyers of the Environmental Rights Foundation and the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association, Taiwan.
The Taichung Power Plant in Longjing District is pictured in an undated photograph.
Photo courtesy of the Taichung City Government
The lawsuit was officially filed on July 11 last year.
Critics said that the passage of the project was fast-tracked, given that it involved an additional 5,500 megawatts (MW) of gas-fired power generation capacity, but was exempted from the second-stage review.
Environmental groups yesterday urged the ministry and Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) to subject the project to a second-stage review and reduce the planned installed capacity to 2,600MW.
The project is part of the government’s “replace coal with gas” policy, but would not fully replace coal power, as six coal-fired power units would remain at the plant for backup electricity supply, the advocates said.
Combined with the 2,600MW of gas power capacity built during the project’s first phase, the plant’s total gas power capacity could reach 8,100MW, they said.
The project set annual greenhouse gas emissions at 21,160 kilotonnes for the plant, a figure that fell short of expectations given the original annual emissions of 26,548 kilotonnes in 2022, they said.
The environmental advocates also cited concerns that the newly built gas-fired generators would be allowed to operate after 2050 without a sunset provision.
The project’s air quality assessment criteria and its passage without a vote among EIA committee members were also questionable, they said.
The advocates called on the ministry and Taipower to comply with the latest air quality assessment standards, and put forward a sunset roadmap for the plant’s coal-fired and gas-fired power units.
The court yesterday unveiled the reasons for the judgement, citing two non-compliant acts.
First, the regulations and standards applied to assessing pollutants produced during the project’s construction were improper.
Second, the environmental impact of the combined use of existing coal power units and additional gas power units was not properly reviewed, it said.
The court dismissed the lawsuit applicants’ demand for enforcing the project’s second-stage EIA review.
The ministry yesterday said that it had not received the court’s written judgement and would likely file an appeal.
Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said the project aims to improve the environment by replacing coal with gas and was passed by the EIA committee in 2024.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs would respect the EIA committee’s decision, he said, adding that Taipower would assist in providing evidence if the ministry appeals.
Taipower yesterday said that the second-phase project’s additional gas power units would be the key to decommissioning the plant’s six coal power units.
Taipower has initiated a plan to dismantle two of the six coal power units from this month, it said, adding that it seeks to fulfill the plant’s coal-free target.
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