The service life of Taiwan’s First Nuclear Power Plant will not be extended to cover short-term power shortages. The news was confirmed by Deputy Economics Minister Yang Wei-fu on Wednesday.
Yang said that the national power company, Taipower, had already withdrawn an application to extend the life of the plant beyond its planned decommission date of 2019.
There was controversy in June when it emerged that the government was considering restarting the plant’s first reactor to cover potential power shortages over the summer.
The government has committed itself to phasing out atomic energy to make Taiwan a nuclear-free homeland as soon as is feasible. This is in line with the widespread public opposition to nuclear power following the Fukushima meltdown in Japan in 2011.