Electricity rates are to remain unchanged at NT$2.6253 per kilowatt-hour for the next six months, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday following a meeting of its electricity price review committee.
Electricity rates have not been altered in the four meetings since September 2018, and the committee decided to keep the rates unchanged until March 31 next year, before it holds its next twice-yearly meeting, the ministry said.
Saying that price stability is the overriding consideration of the committee, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生) told reporters at a news conference that the body opted not to lower electricity prices, despite slumping crude oil prices.
Photo: CNA
“While oil prices have fallen considerably, the US Energy Information Administration expects crude oil prices to rise to US$50 a barrel in 2021, compared with US$42 a barrel this year,” Tseng said.
Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower, 台電) nuclear power back-end operational costs were another factor affecting the review of electricity rates, the ministry said.
Taipower would earmark NT$24.2 billion (US$820.73 million) for its Nuclear Power Back-end Operations Fund this year to pay for the decommissioning of nuclear power plants, Tseng said.
The operational costs swelled from NT$335.3 billion in a 2008 estimate to NT$472.9 billion in a 2017 estimate, he said.
“We need to make up the difference as quickly as possible from an accounting perspective,” he added.
After taking into account those factors, and comprehensively considering the price stability policy and the steady operation of Taipower, the committee decided to maintain the stability of electricity prices, Tseng said.
Meanwhile, if Taipower this year posts “a reasonable profit” of 5 percent of its revenue, the surplus would go to the energy price stabilization fund, which was established by the government to ameliorate the effects of short-term fluctuations in electricity prices on the economy, Tseng said.
There is currently NT$10.8 billion in the fund, he said.
Taipower, the nation’s largest electricity supplier and monopoly grid operator, is expected to be in the black this year, the ministry said.
The company reported a pretax profit of NT$8 billion in the first seven months of this year, up from a loss of NT$28.2 billion in the same period last year, according to the company’s Web site.
Tseng declined to make predictions about possible electricity rates, saying that there are too many uncertainties to take into account.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day