• Taipower has been invited to co-organize the “Power up! The Age of Electricity in Taiwan” special exhibition with the National Taiwan Museum for the first time. The exhibition opens today with over 60 exhibits and more than 160 precious images on display in four themes.

Since 2017, Taipower has been organizing special exhibitions of power cultural assets and transforming power development into historical cultural assets in various forms. Examples include the first special exhibition of power industry monuments and buildings in 2017, the special exhibition “Power Infrastructure as Landscape” at Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in 2018, the special exhibition “Just Flow” with the theme of hydropower generation in 2019, and the special exhibition “Light Up” with the theme of power transmission in 2020. Now, for the first time, Taipower has been invited by the National Taiwan Museum to jointly organize the special exhibition “Power up! The Age of Electricity in Taiwan”, which officially opens today (December 5). Taipower indicated that the special exhibition has four main themes, displaying over 60 exhibits and more than 160 precious images from Taipower, National Taiwan Museum, National Museum of Taiwan History, and National Science and Technology Museum, as well as 14 historical power meters to create an interactive art installation that transcends time and space. The special exhibition will be on display from December 6 to April 7, 2024 on the 2nd floor of the Red Building of the Nanmen Branch of the National Taiwan Museum. Visitors are welcome to explore the century-old story of the island's electricity supply.

On the afternoon of December 5, Taipower’s Active Chairman Tseng Wen-Sheng, National Taiwan Museum Director Hong Shih-You, Ministry of Culture Undersecretary Li Lian-Chuan, and other distinguished guests officially launched the special exhibition. Taipower stated that the special exhibition of electricity not only records the development of electricity in Taiwan, but also witnesses the history and life of this land with the public. Taipower also expressed its gratitude to the Ministry of Culture for its support and the honor to co-organize a special exhibition on electricity with the National Taiwan Museum, the oldest museum in Taiwan, which marks a great step forward in Taipower's involvement in electricity exhibitions.

• Taipower’s Active Chairman Tseng Wen-Sheng (second from right), National Taiwan Museum Director Hong Shih-You (first from left), Ministry of Culture Undersecretary Li Lian-Chuan (second from left), and Taipower’s Vice President Hsu Tsao-Hua (first from right) jointly launched the special exhibition of “Power up! The Age of Electricity in Taiwan”.

According to Taipower, in the prelude to the special exhibition, the 1915 work “Near the Water Source” by Chen Cheng-Po, one of Taiwan's leading painters of modern times, shows how electricity had entered into our daily life through a street scene of a power pole. The red building with the chimney in the picture is the Taipei Preparatory Thermal Power Station, which was completed in the same year and was the first large-scale power plant (with an installed capacity of 950 kW) in the urban area of Taipei and is now the Taiwan Power Research Institute of Taiwan Power Company. The second theme, “Supply and Demand of Electricity”, includes the first public display of the 1929 “Sun Moon Lake Hydroelectric Project Plan” produced by Taipower’s predecessor, Taiwan Power Stock Company, and the 1937 “Sun Moon Lake Power Plant Related Facilities Layout Map” to give the public a glimpse into the history of Sun Moon Lake's development.

• The special exhibition features the 1915 work “Near the Water Source” by Chen Cheng-Po, one of Taiwan's leading painters of modern times, showing how electricity had entered into our daily life through a street scene of a power pole. The red building with the chimney in the picture is the Taipei Preparatory Thermal Power Station, which was completed in the same year and was the first large-scale power plant in the urban area of Taipei.

• The special exhibition also shows for the first time the 1929 “Sun Moon Lake Hydroelectric Project Plan” produced by Taipower’s predecessor, Taiwan Power Stock Company, and the 1937 “Sun Moon Lake Power Plant Related Facilities Layout Map” to give the public a glimpse into the history of Sun Moon Lake’s development.

The third theme of the special exhibition presents the impact of electricity on life from ancient times to the present. For example, in the early days of Taiwan when electric lights were not yet popular, oil lamps, candles, and carbide lamps were mainly used as nighttime lighting tools. The carbide lamp on display is a lamp that used to be filled with water from the upper base that dripped downward, allowing the water to come into contact with the calcium carbide clay placed in the lower base to produce gas, which then ignites the nozzle for lighting, and the size of the flame can be adjusted by the speed of the water flow, making it much brighter than oil lamps or candles. Moreover, the special exhibition is also combined with animated interactive images, so that visitors can feel the changes in daily life brought about by electricity in different eras.

• In the early days of Taiwan when electric lights were not yet popular, oil lamps, candles, and carbide lamps were mainly used as nighttime lighting tools. The carbide lamp on display is a lamp that used to be filled with water from the upper base that dripped downward, allowing the water to come into contact with the calcium carbide clay placed in the lower base to produce gas, which then ignites the nozzle for lighting, and the size of the flame can be adjusted by the speed of the water flow.

Taipower stated that the special exhibition presents the first electricity meter in Taiwan, which is over 100 years old, and also features a cross-country collaboration between two artists who specialize in immersive creation, Fan Ho-Shuo and Blaine Whiteley from the UK, using 14 representative electricity meters from the past years and combining them with digital sound and light effects to create an interactive installation “The Landscape of Electricity in Taiwan”, making visitors feel as if they are transcending the history of Taiwan's electricity supply in an instant.

• The special exhibition presents the first electricity meter in Taiwan, which is over 100 years old.

• The special exhibition features the collaboration of cross-country artists to create an interactive installation, “The Landscape of Electricity in Taiwan”, with digital sound and light effects using 14 representative electric meters over the years, making visitors feel as if they are transcending the history of Taiwan's electricity supply in an instant.

According to Taipower, the special exhibition will be on display from December 6 to April 7, 2024 (closed on Mondays) on the 2nd floor of the Red Building of the Nanmen Branch of the National Taiwan Museum. Tickets are NT$20, which includes admission to the Museum’s other permanent exhibitions and special exhibitions as well.

In addition to ensuring a stable power supply, Taipower has also been actively committed to preserving cultural resources in recent years. In 2016, it launched the Cultural Resources Preservation Project and the Public Art and Cultural Exhibition Project, becoming the first nationally owned company to establish a budget for a cultural resources project, establish a special unit, and recruit cultural resources professionals. and Thus far, this Taipower has invested dozens of units and hundreds of people in inventorying 10,000 pieces of cultural resources. Since 2017, Taipower has been organizing special exhibitions of electricity cultural assets. In addition to winning the Arts & Business Award of the Ministry of Culture three consecutive times, in 2019, the special exhibition “Just Flow” was honored with the German Red Dot Design Award, which is one of the four major design awards in the world, along with iF of Germany, IDEA of the United States, and G-Mark of Japan.

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• Taipower has been invited to co-organize an exhibition with the National Taiwan Museum for the first time: "Power up! The Age of Electricity in Taiwan" opens today with over 60 exhibits and more than 160 precious images on display in four themes. The exhibition will be held from December 6, 2022 to April 7, 2024 on the 2nd floor of the Red Building of the Nanmen Branch of the National Taiwan Museum.

Spokesperson: Wu Chin-Chung, Chief Engineer

Telephone: (02) 2366-6271 / 0910-192-766

Email: u850899@taipower.com.tw

Contact Person: Yuan Mei-Ling, Director, Public Relations Department

Telephone: (02) 2366-7430 / 0939-656-201

Email: u004465@taipower.com.tw