The Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee held its first public hearing on a proposed amendment to the Electricity Act (電業法) yesterday, after the Executive Yuan submitted it to the legislature on Oct. 20.
The proposed amendment aims to gradually liberalize the electricity industry and help to develop the nation’s renewable energy industry.
At the hearing in Taipei, National Taipei University professor of economics Wang To-far (王塗發) said the Executive Yuan should withdraw the amendment and redraft it, as the scale of the liberalization is too small to make an impact on the industry.
Wang is a strong advocate for the liberalization of the local power industry, saying that state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) should separate its power generation and electricity distribution businesses to provide private operators with the leeway to participate in the domestic energy business.
However, under the Executive Yuan’s amendment, Taipower is to be divided into two companies within six to nine years, to separate power generation and electricity distribution.
Wang said that the government measures aim to do too little, too slowly.
“What kind of reform is this?” Wang asked.
Other participants also criticized the proposed amendment for being mainly focused on the “green” energy sector, rather than an across-the-board liberalization to deregulate the nation’s energy industry.
According to the draft amendment, “green” energy firms would be allowed to sell and transmit electricity to users directly, with the price to be decided by market mechanisms.
Tang Hui-lin (唐慧琳), a research assistant at the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) National Policy Foundation think tank, said that lawmakers should return the draft amendment to the Executive Yuan because it is not complete.
National Tsing Hua University Institute of Law for Science and Technology associate professor Anton Gao (高銘志) said he agrees that the government should amend the Electricity Act, but it should also revise the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源條例) to better help develop the “green” energy industry.
The Economics Committee decided to hold a second public hearing on Monday after four hours of heated discussion.
The committee would not start reviewing the amendment until it judges that no more public hearings are required, committee convener Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said.
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
RSS