On 29 March 2026, Tsaiying Lu, Director of DSET’s Energy Security and Climate Resilience Program, was invited to participate in the Energy Resilience Forum of the 2026 Taiwan Civil Defense Convention, co-organised by Kuma Academy and the Liberal Democratic League of Ukraine. She shared DSET’s assessment of Taiwan’s energy risks under grey-zone threats and discussed strategies for strengthening resilience.
The forum opened with remarks by Chia-Wei Chao, Research Director of the Taiwan Climate Action Network (TCAN), followed by presentations from Tsaiying Lu and Pin-Han Huang, Secretary-General of the Mom Loves Taiwan Association.
In her opening presentation, Dr. Lu outlined the potential impacts of a quarantine of Taiwan on the supply of LNG, and Taiwan’s LNG diversification efforts. She shared how Taiwan’s renewable energy sources and coal stockpiles means Taiwan would be able to remain self-reliant for much longer than the 14 days often cited in media reports. Dr Lu. also shared short term recommendations for boosting Taiwan’s energy resilience against the PRC’s gray zone tactics, including developing cargo swapping mechanisms with trustworthy partners, and a platform for monitoring the insurance rating for emergency situations.
Dr. Lu also shared learnings from Ukraine’s experience, highlighting how different actors across society have contributed to energy resilience under wartime. Since the full-scale invasion in February, Ukraine has added over 3 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity, demonstrating the importance of distributed generation to resilience. Households, schools, hospitals, SMEs, and industry have all turned to distributed energy sources, including solar-plus-storage and generators. The Ukrainian government has provided a range of financial support mechanisms to help these users install distributed generation, with the 5-7-9 affordable loan program emerging as a key financial instrument that has already supported around 1.3GW of new generation facilities.
Dr. Lu concluded her talk by emphasising the importance of trusted information sources across online platforms for public communication and to counter FIMI. Russian energy FIMI narratives often show a temporal correlation with physical attacks, and Ukraine has developed a whole of society approach to counter FIMI narratives.
Pin-han Huang’s presentation outlined how distributed, community-led microgrids combining solar power and energy storage can help ensure local communities remain self-sufficient during emergencies. “Resilience communities” case studies in Pingtung and Yilan demonstrate the success of such models.
During the Q&A session, Dr. Lu emphasised the importance of protecting critical nodes in the power sector, drawing on the Ukrainian experience of implementing three-layer physical defences and anti-drone technology at substations. She also shared how Ukraine has developed expertise in rapidly repairing energy infrastructure during wartime. The speakers emphasized that nuclear energy is not a “silver bullet” for energy security, as Ukraine’s experience shows how nuclear plants are vulnerable to attacks on transmission lines and cooling systems.
DSET’s Energy Security and Climate Resilience Research Program will continue to monitor developments in Taiwan’s energy security and provide insights into transferable lessons for energy resilience based on Ukraine’s experiences.
