Taiwan’s Energy Administration is planning to set up around 160 microgrids to make the country’s power network more resilient, according to Taiwan Power Company Vice President Wu Chin-chung (吳進忠). The state-owned power company has already helped set up nine disaster-prevention microgrid demonstration projects.

A microgrid is a small power network that can generate, store and manage electricity locally, either connected to the main grid or operating independently during emergencies.

Wu made the remarks at the Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET) 2026 Annual Forum held in Taipei on Saturday, June 6. The power company executive was speaking during a panel discussion on energy security cooperation alongside experts from the U.S., Japan and Ukraine.

Wu said that Taiwan must adopt a “more distributed approach” to power grid management, after major blackout incidents in 2021 and 2022 exposed vulnerabilities in the centralized system. Human error was the immediate trigger for those blackout events.

“We know that the traditional power grid is very easily subject to attack and external military damage,” he said, adding that around 160 microgrids were currently planned. 

Speaking on the same panel moderated by DSET Energy Security and Climate Resilience Program Director Lu Tsaiying (呂采穎), Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Senior Advisor Mark Cancian and Sasakawa Peace Foundation Senior Fellow Tomohisa Takei presented findings from separate wargame simulations that modeled scenarios including a Chinese blockade of Taiwan.

Takei said a war with China would be “total war.” He suggested that Taiwan should mitigate geopolitical vulnerabilities by improving energy self-sufficiency and activating nuclear power.

Also speaking on the panel, Ukrainian energy think tank DiXi Group Vice President Anton Antonenko discussed lessons Ukraine had learned since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. He highlighted the importance of decentralizing energy generation, but also noted that war is dynamic and requires constant adaptation.