In a bid to set fair domestic electricity rates, legislators yesterday reached an agreement on a new electricity pricing mechanism, which will cap annual electricity rate increases at 6 percent.
The new pricing scheme will take effect in April at the earliest, with legislators saying that as international crude oil prices are likely to continue to fall, it is expected that electricity rates will fall after consumers receive their June electricity bills, Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) told a media briefing.
Based on the new pricing scheme, state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is required to adjust its electricity rates every six months in accordance with the fluctuation of fuel costs, including the prices of crude oil, coal and natural gas, Deng said.
Price increases will be limited to 3 percent every six months, or 6 percent on an annual basis, he said.
“On the other hand, Taipower has to completely reflect the falling costs of power generation in the electricity prices if there are any,” Deng said.
Lawmakers also agreed to a “reasonable” profit margin of between 3 percent and 5 percent for Taipower.
As of last year, Taipower had accumulated NT$193.5 billion (US$613.31 million) in losses, Deng said. To help write off the losses, lawmakers agreed to allow Taipower to enjoy a profit margin of 5 percent at most until the company clears the debt, Deng said.
“After Taipower pays off its accumulated losses, the ‘reasonable’ profit margin will be set at 3 percent,” Deng added.
That reasonable profit margin range would guarantee the company a profit of between NT$10.5 billion and NT$17.4 billion a year, Taipower chairman Hwang Jung-chiou (黃重球) said, citing a company estimate.
Hwang said although the new pricing mechanism begins in April, Taipower would still increase summer electricity rates between June and September.
“The summer electricity price increase has been in force for more than two decades to conserve energy and we will continue with the policy to encourage people to conserve energy,” Hwang said.
Hwang said that the cost of developing renewable energy sources had also been factored into the pricing mechanism.
“Households which use 400 kilowatt-hours per month will pay NT$4 more per month to pay for renewable energy development,” Hwang said. “That said, we are still confident that electricity rates in April will be lower than the current rates due to the decline in global oil prices.”
During the meeting, lawmakers agreed to review the electricity pricing mechanism again in two years.
Separately, lawmakers requested that the Executive Yuan send an amendment to the Electricity Act (電業法) to the legislature for deliberation within six months.
“We will give the proposal to the Cabinet at the beginning of February at the latest,” Deng said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the