Closure of Chin Shan‑2 Ends Operations at Taiwan’s First Nuclear Power Plant

WNISR, 22 September 2019

The Chin Shan-2 reactor (also known as Jinshan and First Nuclear Power Plant) was officially closed on 15 July 2019 when its 40-year operating license expired. The reactor, located in Shimen, New Taipei, in northern Taiwan, had remained shut down since June 2017—and thus had been considered by WNISR as in Long-Term Outage (LTO) up until 15 July. The closure of Unit 2 brings to an end electricity generation at Taiwan’s first nuclear power plant, following the closure of Unit 1 on 5 December 2018.

The Atomic Energy Council (AEC) issued the Decommissioning Permit in accordance with the “Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act” to the Chinshan Nuclear Power Plant of Taiwan Power Company (TPC) on 12 July 2019. The permit was enacted on 16 July 2019. The AEC had received the application for the decommissioning of Chin Shan Nuclear Power Plant submitted by the TPC on 25 November 2015. Decommissioning is currently planned to take 25 years.

Both reactors at Chin Shan are Mark-1 BWRs, which began operation in 1977 and 1978 respectively. In May 2016, environmental groups launched a court case against the restart of Chin Shan-1 calling it the “most dangerous reactor in the world”. Taipower’s decommissioning plan for both units at Chin Shan had been approved by the AEC in June 2017.

The government of President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which was elected in May 2016, remains committed to a nuclear phase-out by 2025, while transitioning the energy economy to renewables.