The operational challenges: Achieving 500 mA high beam current at Taiwan Photon Source

The Taiwan Photon Source (TPS) has been in routine operation at 500 mA since the last season of 2021, utilizing two superconducting cavities, bunch by bunch feedback system, and fast orbit feedback system, along with many technical efforts. The operation of TPS maintains its high reliability and availability. The mean time between failures is more than 190 hours with an availability greater than 98.9% in 2023. With newly developed cryogenic permanent magnet undulators, IVUs, and EPUs, balancing the needs of both soft X-ray and hard X-ray users. Many challenges have been encountered in the journey to achieving a beam current of 500 mA, primarily due to the short bunch length of 16 ps and impedance issues in vacuum chambers at TPS storage ring. Ongoing efforts to improve the performance and the detailed journey to achieving 500 mA top-up operation will be presented.