Mailao is a 4,200 MW coal power station in Taiwan, Taiwan. It is operated by Formosa Plastics Group (Mailiao Power Corp). Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 5.3 million homes (estimated). It ranks #4 of 60 Taiwan power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1998, it is around 28 years old — long-established. In context, coal supplies about 36.3% of Taiwan's electricity; the national grid averages 633 gCO₂/kWh (13.4% low-carbon) (2025).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id WRI1000362.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The public capacity above is the current source-record value. A 2026 tracker candidate lists 1,800 MW for Mailiao power station, but it is not used as the public primary value until scope is verified (unit vs operating vs installed/project total).
Capacity claim grade: D_REJECT_KEEP_MASTER - recommended action: keep_master - confidence: rejected_candidate. This follows a claim-based data model: value + scope + source + confidence, rather than silently overwriting records.
The capacity and fuel fields on this page are source-record values from the upstream open dataset. They are useful for identification and ranking, but they have not been upgraded to a 2026 registry/GEM-location verified value.
capacity: WRI Global Power Plant Database source-record (legacy); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
At 4,200 MW, Mailao is well above the median coal plant in Taiwan (324 MW). Technically it is described as subcritical. Coal plants burn pulverised coal to raise high-pressure steam for a turbine; they run as baseload but are the most carbon-intensive mainstream source and the first targeted for retirement or efficiency retrofits.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
Installed capacity (MW), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by Formosa Plastics Group (Mailiao Power Corp).
This coal plant burns coal to raise high-pressure steam that spins a turbine-generator. It sits in a humid subtropical (dry winter) climate (Köppen Cwa) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 23.8°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
Heating degree-days here run 95% below the median power plant in this dataset — a proxy for how much extra energy heated equipment must replace through its surfaces in winter.
Climate heat-demand index: 16/100 — this site sits in the bottom third of the power plants we cover by heating degree-days.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in an aggressive, high-corrosion environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C5 — Very high), with marine salt corrosion the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #3 largest coal power plant of 19 in Taiwan by capacity.
Taiwan has 19 coal power plants in this dataset, together about 26,070 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 23.8033, 120.1902 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Mailao is a 4,200 MW source-record coal power plant in Taiwan, Taiwan, commissioned in 1998.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 5,256,000 homes (estimated).
Mailao is operated by Formosa Plastics Group (Mailiao Power Corp).
