The Executive Yuan today convened the first meeting of a task force to investigate the causes and administrative responsibilities for the August 15 blackout that affected 5.92 million households and businesses nationwide. The power outage occurred when a disruption in natural gas supply caused power generators at Taoyuan's Datan Power Plant to trip.
During the meeting, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, state-run fuel supplier CPC Corp., and the Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) delivered several reports on the accident, including the events of the accident itself, preliminary self-investigations and respective response measures. Contents of the agreement with the contractor were also provided for review. Members of the task force were primarily concerned with the true causes behind the gas supply disruption and power failure, whether standard operating procedures were in place, how many supervisors were on site, and the presence of foolproof mechanisms. Taipower and CPC were asked to provide further information to assist the investigation.
The Executive Yuan said it has scheduled the task force for an on-site inspection in the coming days to walk through the accident scene and determine the causes of the failures and where administrative responsibilities lie. The task force will complete its investigation as early as possible and provide recommendations for improvements.