The opening of a controversial new nuclear power plant in Taiwan that has already far exceeded its budget has been put back for months at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, its operator said Friday.
The island's fourth plant, which is nearly complete, will not meet a December 2011 deadline due to technical problems during test runs, said an official at state-run Taiwan Power (Taipower). It is now set to open in 2012.
Taipower, which runs the island's existing three nuclear power stations, estimated the delay will cost an additional $331 million dollars, the official said.
The company declined to comment on a report in the Taipei-based United Daily News that stated repeated delays had blown up the budget for the plant to about $9 billion.
This compares with a budget of about $3 billion when the project got off the ground in the 1990s, and according to the paper this would make it the world's most expensive nuclear facility.
The project has been marred by controversy since the then governing Democratic Progressive Party scrapped the partially-built plant in 2000, plunging the island into months of political turmoil.
It was reinstated the following year, costing the government billion of dollars in extra expenses.
Electricity generated by the three nuclear power plants accounts for 20 percent of the island's power supply.
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