Electricity users are set to see a NT$0.5 (US$0.017) rise for every kilowatt-hour they consume, given the cost of building the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant and a government program to increase the use of “green” energy, Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) said on Monday.
He was responding to lawmakers who asked for his estimate of how the NT$283.2 billion construction cost for completing and then mothballing the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) would affect electricity bills.
In step with the government’s plan to achieve its policy goal of a nuclear-free homeland by 2025, Taiwan is also increasing the proportion of renewable energy to 20 percent of all energy use, while 50 percent would be supplied by natural gas and 30 percent by coal.
Taking into account the cost of building the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant and the cost of transforming the nation’s sources of energy, Shen said a NT$0.5 increase per kilowatt-hour would be likely.
That was calculated based on a nine-year amortization of the NT$283.2 billion bill, which would be an increase of NT$0.11 per kilowatt-hour, plus the cost of generating more renewable energy to meet the 2025 target, he said.
If the time frame for amortizing the cost of the plant was set at 20, 25 or 30 years, the cost increase would be NT$0.058, NT$0.047 and NT$0.039 respectively, he said.
As the nuclear power plant could eventually be turned into a “general power park” at a cost of NT$20 billion, the final cost of building and shuttering the nuclear power plant would be NT$260 billion, Shen said.
Taiwan Power Co (台電) is to raise the price of electricity by an average of 3 percent, or NT$0.0765 per kilowatt-hour, on Sunday, although 80 percent of users would not be affected.
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