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Last December, China staged one of its largest military drills ever near Taiwan, the island Beijing has long called its own. They showed off fighter jets and assault ships, hit targets in the ocean. It was the latest in a long string of military exercises, all aiming to send one simple message: if they wanted to, China could block the sea route to the isolated island. For Taiwan, that relies on fossil fuels to come in on ships for 95% of its energy, this is an existential threat. So where else could Taiwan get the energy it needs to survive?
Can renewables come to its rescue? The question of how to defend itself against its much bigger neighbor isn't new to Taiwan. After the Chinese civil war in 1949, the defeated Nationalist Party moved its government - called the Republic of China - from the mainland to Taiwan. The Communist Party won and formed the People's Republic of China, the modern China most countries recognize today. Since then, Beijing has always claimed ownership of Taiwan, despite the island having its own government and economic system.
And threats to close the island off have long been part of that claim. In 1958, the Chinese military bombarded and imposed a 44-day blockade of the Kinmen Islands, a small Taiwanese region right next to the mainland. Then in 1996, China fired missiles off the coast of Taiwan's two major ports, threatening the shipping lanes which now more than one-fifth of global trade goes through. But today, shipping isn't the only concern. "Taiwan has way more influence than a small island like it would normally have." That's Mark Cancian. He leads research simulating how China could attack Taiwan.
"If anything should happen to Taiwan it would affect everyone." That's for one simple reason: microchips. The computer, TV or phone you're watching this from likely relies on a chip made in Taiwan. Taiwan produces over 60% of the world's semiconductors and 90% of advanced chips, so it's vital to global supply chains. The U.S. and its allies depend on these chips for their economies and militaries. Any disruption to Taiwan's chip production, such as conflict or an energy shortage, would spell huge trouble. So these countries would likely step in
to keep the supply chain stable. That's why Taiwan's semiconductor industry is often called the "Silicon Shield." But as China is looking to secure access to advanced chips, fears are growing this shield might come under attack. TSMC, the largest chipmaker in the world, takes up nearly 10% of Taiwan's total electricity consumption. So to sustain itself and power the chipmaking industry, Taiwan needs secure energy. And right now, that mostly comes in the form of fossil fuels - imported via sea. "We don't have enough reserves in terms of gas or oil drilling in Taiwan." That's Tsaiying Lu, an energy researcher in a Taiwanese think tank.
Natural gas is now the largest source of energy in Taiwan - nearly half of its electricity generation. It's imported via sea as LNG, so cooled down to its liquid form. But there's a big problem: LNG storage requires lots of cooling and energy, making it expensive to store. "They have to consider the economic feasibility to store that much LNG without using it." Since most of Taiwan's LNG infrastructure is along its west coast, China could easily strike it as well. Right now, Taiwan's gas supply can only last for 12 days if the imports are completely blocked. They're planning to push that number to 14 by 2027. But during a Chinese blockade, LNG would quickly be the first energy reserve to dry up.
Taiwan would have to fall back on its coal reserves that could generate electricity for 40 days. And in reality, Taiwan would likely try to ration its energy supplies, for example by slashing industrial activities, to make them last as long as possible. All this means there's a pretty wide range of guesses for how long Taiwan could last if a blockade were to happen right now, anywhere from about 1.5 to six months. But at some point, the fossil fuels will run out. Taiwan would have to generate its own electricity. And it used to have a way of doing that. Back in 1985, half of its electricity came from nuclear energy. But a strong anti-nuclear movement pushed further by a nuclear waste scandal on indigenous land
and radioactive contamination in a residential complex saw that drop to zero percent. Last year, Taiwan deactivated its last operating reactor. And while the debate over renewing the industry is ongoing, restarting the reactors would take years. If nuclear is out of the picture, there's only one real solution in case of a Chinese attack: So how's Taiwan's green energy development? Well, it's been slower than expected. The island's goal was for renewables to reach 20% of its electricity generation last year, but it only reached 13%. And it's not because of a lack of natural advantages.
Taiwan benefits from 70% mountainous land and lots of rainfall for hydro power; abundant sunshine for solar power; and strong and consistent wind for offshore wind plants. But in recent years, each type of renewable has struggled to grow, and in one case has even declined. Hydro is one of the oldest renewables in Taiwan: The first plant was built over a century ago when Taiwan was a Japanese colony. In 1968, hydro was the source of nearly 12% of Taiwan's total energy consumption. But now? It sits at only 2.3%. What happened? "We don't have a lot of sites for the hydro to develop right now." This is Chia-Wei Chao, an activist and scholar in the presidential climate change committee.
"We're also facing a water crisis at the same time." At the beginning of 2026, rainfall in western Taiwan dropped to their lowest levels in decades. That's where most of the hydro plants are located. In other words, hydro isn't going to help much in Taiwan's energy security or during a blockade. How about wind? It's the second biggest renewable source in Taiwan. With limited landmass and residents' environmental concerns over onshore turbines, offshore wind plants have a much bigger potential. And that's the approach that they've taken so far. This map shows where wind plants are already operating or planned in Taiwan - lots offshore. In 2012, Taiwan launched the Thousand Wind Turbines project.
And the potential is there. Over the years, offshore farms attracted billions in investment. But rollouts have been slow. There's a law to mandate the use of locally-made components and regulations can be confusing. But there's a lot to gain from fixing these issues. "If we reach the goal to have our offshore wind to increase the capacity to ten gigawatts by 2032, offshore wind plus solar and coal that actually can be sufficient for Taiwan's electricity demand, you know, without much uses of LNG anymore."
But putting up more and more offshore wind farms also comes at a risk: undersea cables. Offshore wind farms rely on these cables to transmit energy back to the grid on land. Cutting them could paralyse Taiwan's offshore wind energy supply. And military vessels are expected to guard them if a blockade or war started, but China has already shown how vulnerable such cables are. In 2023, Chinese vessels cut two undersea cables near Taiwan's Matsu island, knocking out its internet. "We still don't have a very clear mechanism to ensure that the cable safety for the offshore wind." That leaves one last option: Solar energy is the largest renewable source in Taiwan at the moment.
And the government is doing a lot to boost capacity: it subsidizes solar panel installation, and a 2026 policy will require all large new buildings to install rooftop solar. To reduce reliance on its rival and worried about info leaks, Taiwan has also banned any China-made solar equipment from reaching its soil, and sources locally instead. And out of all renewable options, solar has the largest potential to sustain the island during a blockade. One big reason is that it's one of the most decentralized ways to power the grid. "This is very important, because when the war begins, we cannot, you know, lay out the possibility that PRC will not attack our substations and cause cross-regional blackouts."
That's what Russia is doing in Ukraine. Russia regularly targets energy facilities across the country. Major blackouts occurred and Ukraine started building dozens of solar plants at hospitals just to survive. "We saw from the Ukraine experience, you can see how the renewables actually work as an important source for households, for hospitals and all other small scale markets. They all have these solar panels in place, plus power storage system and EMS, so that they can be self-sufficient, even if they were caught off grid." But the Taiwanese public isn't exactly a fan of solar, partly because of disinformation going around.
In 2025, for example, a typhoon destroyed some solar plants. Some peoples were quick to take this as an argument that solar can't work in Taiwan - even though only 0.4% of all panels in the country were affected. But the narrative stuck. "The acceptance for solar, I will say, comes to the historically low." That's on top of other challenges like lengthy permission process and a high land cost. "Solar, they are kind of like our very important weapon in terms of the national defense, if we have solar with the energy storage, we can easily keep our lights on for several days for those key critical infrastructure." So what does all this mean?
What's the best way for Taiwan to prepare for a potential conflict? Taiwan still depends on imported fossil fuels. Meanwhile, there has been some progress with renewables - but not enough. The experts we talked to agreed that boosting fossil fuel reserves is the right strategy in the short run. In the long run, however, Taiwan should focus on building more wind farms and especially solar panels to stay independent. Can renewables come to Taiwan's rescue in case of a Chinese invasion or blockade? Let us know in the comments below.
