State-owned Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) said yesterday that it would not fully reflect the steep rise in global fuel costs when it raises electricity prices by between 10 percent and 20 percent on July 1, in order to lessen the impact on the economy.
As the implementation of higher summer electricity prices from next month to September approaches, the Cabinet said in its written statement yesterday that Taipower could only raise its electricity prices by one-fourth of what it needed to adjust on July 1, and increase to one half on Oct. 1.
“Based on Taipower’s current estimation, the level of price hike would exceed 10 percent, but no more than 20 percent on July 1,” Huang Huei-yu (黃惠予), deputy director of Taipower’s department of public relations, said yesterday.
“But Taipower’s exact price hike cannot be determined until CPC Corp, Taiwan [CPC, 台灣中油] announces its price adjustments on June 1,” Huang said.
Taipower’s losses will total NT$46.6 billion (US$1.5 billion) at the end of this month, which Huang said would surge above NT$100 billion by the end of this year, as the company will not fully reflect the rise in fuel costs.
Based on an average 318 kilowatt hours that the nation’s households used per month last year, average homeowners will likely have to pay NT$30 to NT$50 per month more for electricity in July, Huang said.
Taipower posted a 10 percent gain in sales last month compared with a year earlier as the company sold 15.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, the utility said in a newsletter.
Electricity sales at Taipower increased an average 4.4 percent annually over the past five years, the company said on its Web site.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY BLOOMBERG
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese
RSS