As Taiwan prepares for China to impose a maritime blockade, the island’s chief concern should be its reliance on imported fuel.
Taiwan imports 97% of its energy, so a total blockade would leave Taiwan’s electricity grid subsisting on renewable energy and reserves of liquid natural gas, or LNG, coal and oil. The question of how long Taiwan could last in such a situation is a polarizing one.
“There’s no way Taiwan’s gonna survive a month,” said Kevin Ting-chen Sun (孫廷禎), senior policy advisor for KMT lawmaker Ching-Hui Chen (陳菁徽).
Others are more optimistic. One expert recently told the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that Taiwan’s energy reserves would last at least 40 days. Chia-Wei Chao (趙家緯), research director of the Taiwan Climate Action Network, thinks that Taiwan could subsist on its reserves for at least a year with effective rationing and the support of renewables.
Translating the amount of energy Taiwan currently has in reserves into the number of days these reserves could last during wartime is complicated by a host of a priori assumptions. For example, what does the blockade look like — is it partial or full? Are bullets flying? How much has Taiwan expanded its installed capacity, particularly for renewables and LNG? Is the public willing to ration? What time of year is it?
The amount of energy Taiwan has in its reserves right now is the first part of this equation. This is ostensibly the simplest part to understand, although it is also fraught with assumptions. Minimum reserve requirements for the government and Taiwan’s energy companies are mandated by law and calculated in terms of days, based on the average daily consumption of the previous year.
Per the Petroleum Administration Act, Taiwan is required to keep 90 days of oil in reserve. The Ministry of Economic Affairs said in 2022 that Taiwan has 146 days worth of oil reserves. Experts continue to cite this number. The government currently requires 11 days of security storage for LNG. For coal, Taiwan has 41 days in reserve, according to a spokesperson for Taipower.
When it comes to electricity generation, specifically, the abundance of oil can be misleading. Taiwan has been transitioning away from oil for decades because it is inefficient and dirty compared to modern alternatives. Thus, the installed capacity of oil-fired power plants — or the maximum electric power that a power generation plant can produce — constitutes only 4.7% of Taiwan’s total installed capacity, according to figures provided by Taipower, Taiwan’s state-owned electric power utility. Outside of the main grid, oil reserves could still be leveraged to power private backup generators during a blockade.
Most of Taiwan’s electricity is fueled by LNG and coal, which accounted for 78.3% of Taiwan’s electricity generation in 2024. Renewable energy continues to expand, but currently only contributes about 33 terawatt hours or 12% to Taiwan’s electricity mix annually. A back of the envelope calculation based on Taiwan’s current energy reserves shows that Taiwan could sustain its normal electricity consumption until LNG reserves run out. Since LNG currently contributes about 47.2% to Taiwan’s electricity generation, after the 11 or so days of LNG reserves are spent, Taiwan would be able to sustain roughly half of its normal electricity consumption. At that point, Taiwan would be mostly relying on coal for electricity generation. The remaining coal reserves could last Taiwan another 30 days or so at average consumption levels.
But what if the blockade happened during Taiwan’s hotter months? China might choose to impose a blockade “when the grid is most vulnerable, i.e., when there is the least supply and the most demand for Taiwan. That is summer,” said Vincent Chen, who researched energy economics at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Data from Taipower shows that electricity consumption on one of the hottest days this past summer was 15% higher than the annual average. Through this lens, the “number of days” of fuel Taiwan has in reserve might be too generous, since these days are calculated based on annual averages.
Jong-Shun Chen (陳中舜), associate researcher at Center for Green Economy at the Chung-Hua Institution Economic Research, told Domino Theory that while Taiwan’s LNG reserves would sustain about 11 days of normal consumption in the winter time, they would only last around seven days during the summer.
Chao from the Taiwan Climate Action Network thinks the “reserve days” of coal and LNG are too conservative because electricity demand could be sharply curtailed during a blockade, allowing Taiwan to survive for about a year on its stored energy plus renewables. His model is based on energy transition targets for 2027, the year around which Taiwan is preparing for a Chinese blockade. Chao projects that Taiwan will be able to maintain 14 days of LNG reserves and generate 70 terawatt hours of renewable energy annually by 2027. Combined with about 40 days of coal reserves, this could generate about 90 terawatt hours across one year, or about one-third of Taiwan’s annual electricity use. In a wartime blockade scenario, electricity demand could be reduced by 70%, Chao said.
Chao’s calculations rely on Taiwan being able to achieve its energy transition targets for 2027, particularly for LNG and renewables. Taiwan is aiming to increase its import and storage of natural gas as it phases out coal. By 2027 Taiwanese law will mandate 14 days of LNG reserves, as Chao’s model specifies. Although Taiwan is building more LNG terminals, the biggest obstacle to their completion, according to Chen Jong-Shun, is a pervasive “not in my backyard” attitude that exists among the public.
Chao’s analysis also projects that Taiwan will be producing over twice the amount of renewable energy by 2027 that it is producing currently. Renewable energy adoption is making progress to be sure — the proportion of renewable energy in Taiwan’s energy mix doubled between 2020 and 2024. For renewable capacity to double again in the next two years is roughly in line with government targets. However, “the key lies in whether these targets can be met both on time and with the expected quality. In reality, Taiwan has not met its renewable energy generation targets at any point over the past eight years,” said Chen Jong-Shun. Taiwan is already set to fall short of its original goal for renewables to account for 20% of its electricity supply by 2025.
Even if doubling renewable supply is achievable, relying on renewables for 78% of Taiwan’s electricity needs in a blockade scenario — 70 out of 90 terawatt hours, in Chao’s calculation — could bring complications of its own.
Renewable energy varies according to daily energy patterns, meaning that it isn’t a reliable baseload source. Another issue is that renewable energy providers are increasingly relying on wireless connection to communicate with Taipower. If communications infrastructure is disrupted during a blockade, renewable energy may not be dispatched effectively.
Nuclear energy isn’t included in this analysis, as it was phased out last spring. A national referendum to restart the Maanshan plant failed in August, and experts say Maanshan would take two or three years to recommission.
The other assumption Chao’s model makes is that under extreme conditions, Taiwan could survive at 30% of normal electricity use. In this scenario, exports are halted and industrial electricity consumption is curtailed by at least 80%. Non-essential services like movie theaters and hair salons are also shuttered, and residential electricity decreases because anything beyond basic needs, such as gaming, is restricted. In 2024, about 55% of Taiwan’s electricity was consumed by industry, 18.8% went toward residential use and 17.6% toward services.
Chao acknowledges that this model relies on some fairly optimistic assumptions. He noted a caveat, which is the possibility that planes can still fly out of Taiwan. In this case, chips could be exported via air, making it more controversial to curtail industrial electricity use. Still, Chao said that energy and national security specialists he’s spoken to in Taiwan’s government have told him they are indeed preparing for scenarios in which Taiwan can survive on only one-third of its normal electricity use.
This would require voluntary rationing among the Taiwanese public. As a report by CSIS in July outlined, a smooth transition to rationing requires that the government has established and publicized rationing plans in advance. But Chao said the degree to which Taiwanese would be willing to change their behavior and the government’s rationing strategy remain unclear. While Taiwan does conduct military and civilian drills to prepare for wartime scenarios, electricity demand preparation is lacking.
What is Taiwan’s standard operating procedure when it can’t import energy? How will 7-Eleven process payments when electricity goes out? How will the government communicate that people can use their refrigerators but not their televisions?
“That’s the question: Are you drilled on this? Are you trained on this?” said Bruce Bateman, a technologist and Taiwan energy expert.
Taiwan “may not survive if everybody panics, and they’re gonna panic because [Taiwan is] not ready,” said Bateman.
Correction: This article was updated on November 24, 2025 to correct the misstatement that the national referendum to restart the Maanshan plant had passed. Although a majority of voters supported the referendum, turnout did not meet the required threshold for the referendum to pass.
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