On Nov. 24, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) met with representatives from the Crazy About Green Power Alliance. At the meeting, Ma said the government thinks green energy is important, and that it was planning to offer electricity generated from green sources (or “green electricity”) as an option to consumers at a slightly higher cost than regular electricity. The president said he identified with the alliance’s view that we should use energy from green sources even if it is a bit more expensive, but that now was not the right time to make it compulsory.
Although he said green electricity would be slightly more expensive, the fact is that it should be cheaper than the electricity we are currently using.
On Dec. 14 and on Jan. 5, the Bureau of Energy held public meetings to explain green electricity pricing, which will come into force beginning in March.
On initial examination, this seems to be a response to public demand for a green electricity option. However, the government actually intends to eliminate the green electricity option and even reverse the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條例) by deliberately increasing the price of energy from renewable resources and by not only blocking the right of green consumers to choose renewable energy, but also by choking industry’s competitiveness when it comes to cutting carbon emissions.
The government has taken no action to push for renewable energy sources. On the contrary, it deliberately inflates the procurement price for renewable energy so that investment in developing such production becomes uneconomic.
The government also blocks individuals, communities and companies that want to invest in the development of renewable energy. If government policies continue to raise obstacles for the development of renewable energy, then such energy will continue to hover at less than 1 percent of production in Taiwan.
On Nov. 24, Ma may have announced that consumers will be given the option of using green electricity, but his executive team has used the formula for calculating the price of green electricity as an excuse to illegally boost its price. Once again, they are about to succeed in blocking the development of a consumer market for renewables.
At the Jan. 5 meeting to offer a preliminary explanation of the formula for calculating the price of green electricity, representatives of the Chinese National Federation of Industries, the General Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of China and the Taipei Computer Association (TCA) rejected the proposal submitted by the Taiwan Research Institute (TRI). This was because the institute had not researched the need for green electricity among Taiwan’s electricity users and its relation to pressures from the global market.
The TCA representative provided a lot of evidence as to how the computer industry has made savings wherever it can. He also said that carbon dioxide emissions in Taiwan are much higher than in Japan, South Korea or the EU and that this will lead to a drop in competitiveness.
He added that following the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Da-ichi Nuclear Power Plant, reducing carbon emissions by relying on nuclear power was no longer an option and the government would have to develop renewable energy to reduce emissions.
By simply dividing the NT$825 million (US$24.7 million) annual budget for the development of renewable energy by the amount of renewable energy used every year, the bureau and the TRI arrived at a price for green electricity that was 65 percent to 126 percent higher than the price of normal electricity, a cost that must be fully absorbed by consumers.
The bureau has introduced the concept of “artificial pricing” for green energy. In doing so, it has not only seen to it that consumers in the private and industrial sectors will be unable to sustain the high cost of renewable electricity, it also runs counter to the fundamental definition of renewable energy development funds in the Renewable Energy Development Act: an amount of money proportional to the quantity of non-renewable electricity should be paid into a fund to be used to subsidize the development and cost of renewable energy.
In the preliminary proposal, green electricity prices have become a way to punish green consumers — you’re free to choose green electricity, but if you do, you must pay a high surcharge: a “fine.” You would have to be crazy or stupid to do so.
Let’s make a simple calculation. Most of Taiwan’s green electricity is wind power-generated. One electricity unit (1kW) costs only NT$2.6 to produce. Add to this NT$0.1 to NT$0.2 for the distribution cost, and the total cost per unit is still below NT$3. If it were then subsidized, there would be no reason to charge a higher than normal price for green electricity — instead consumers are being charged NT$5.9. This is such a simple calculation to make that one wonders why the authorities and research institutions are incapable of making it.
In addition, the draft is even more amateurish as it links the price of green electricity to carbon emissions, and even includes that in the conclusions of the meeting. This displays a complete lack of understanding of fundamental internationally accepted norms which hold that carbon credits and green electricity prices are two separate matters.
The bureau and the TRI’s plan is to choke both the supply and the consumer end of the renewable energy market to destroy it. The rest of the government, which was busy with the recent election campaigns, sat idly by, doing nothing to stop them, while research institutions with a total lack of academic conscience cooperate. This has left the road forward for Taiwan’s renewable energy dark and filled with obstacles. The blocking of renewable energy gives just a small glimpse into the workings and bad track record of the incompetent Ma administration.
Jay Fang is the chairman of the Green Consumers’ Foundation.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and