Assessment of interruption cost to high tech industry in Taiwan

A major issue in utility system resource planning is to provide justification of new reliability levels. Electric service interruption cost is a key indicator of customer expectation and therefore reliability worth. Various surveys have been conducted for assessing interruption costs to different types of customers. To justify the investment on providing premium power for high tech industry, a survey aimed to have a closer look of loss to high tech industrial customers due to electric service interruptions has been conducted. Six high tech categories including semiconductor, computer peripheral, telecommunication, optoelectronics, precision machinery and biotechnology industries were surveyed. An attempt was also conducted to obtain preliminary information of the high tech industry power quality requirements. This paper summarizes some of the important findings from the survey.