Government measures that have been in place for nearly a year to encourage people to save power will be further expanded on July 1, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) said yesterday.
Deng told a press conference that household users who have achieved a drop in power consumption for two consecutive years and a power-saving rate of more than 20 percent in the past two years will be entitled to greater discounts on their power bills.
The discounts will be expanded from the current 5 percent to 20 percent to between 10 percent and 30 percent, Deng said.
The ministry began the original measures last July, since which time the country had as of May 31 saved 4.2 billion kWh in terms of power consumed.
This volume surpassed the total annual power consumption of all households in Kaohsiung, state-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) said.
During the period, Taipower saved NT$18.8 billion (US$570.7 million) in fuel costs and helped cut carbon dioxide emissions by 2.66 million tonnes.
The money household users saved under the energy-saving initiative measures reached NT$14.2 billion during the 10-month period, NT$5.9 billion of which was used to cover the discounts to the public, Taipower said.
The company assessed that the expanded measures would help save 3.8 billion kWh in the coming year and will help household users save a combined NT$12.8 billion on their electricity bills, of which NT$8.3 billion will be used to cover the discounts under the expanded program.
It added that the company itself would save NT$12.4 billion in fuel costs and would cut carbon dioxide emissions by 2.39 million tonnes.
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