Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is to hike electricity rates by 12.5 percent on average for industrial users to reflect fuel cost surges, while leaving tariffs unchanged for households and food retailers like convenience store operators to help stabilize living costs, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The ministry announced the new electricity price scheme after an energy price review committee wrapped up its biannual meeting.
That marked the fourth price increase in three years for industrial users.
Photo: CNA
The state-run utility has to rationalize its power tariffs gradually to support its grid construction projects to boost power supply, the ministry told a media briefing yesterday.
Based on the new price scheme, industrial users would see their electricity bill increase by up to 14 percent if they consume more power this year than last year, Taipower said.
Semiconductor companies fall under this category, the company said.
Electricity rates for industrial users whose power consumption drops by at least 5 percent and revenue dips by at least 15 percent year-on-year would remain unchanged to ease their financial burden, Taipower said.
Scooter and component makers fall under this category, it said.
Some industrial users would see less steep price hikes of about 7 percent, if their power consumption falls by at least 5 percent and their revenue drops by less than 15 percent, Taipower said.
After the price adjustments, industrial electricity rates would climb to NT$4.29 per (US$0.1355) unit on average, which is still lower compared with that of South Korea at NT$4.65 per unit in the first half of this year.
Local exporters would remain competitive in terms of power costs, the ministry said.
That is quite different from Taipower’s past mechanism when industrial users that are heavy power users faced more drastic hikes. Now, power conservation seems to play a bigger role in deciding price increases.
The new electricity tariffs are to take effect from Oct. 16 when the summer power rates expire.
The latest price increases would inject NT$15 billion in additional revenue for Taipower in the remainder of the year, while it would add 0.03 percentage points to the nation’s inflation indirectly this year, Taipower vice president and spokesman Tsai Chih-meng (蔡志孟) said.
Taipower expects the price hikes to help narrow its losses to about NT$80 billion per month, as it is still making losses from supplying power to households, Taipower president Wang Yao-ting (王耀庭) told a media briefing.
Electricity tariffs for households stand at NT$2.77 per unit on average, significantly below Taipower’s costs of NT$3.9 per unit, the company said.
Taipower would still need the government’s subsidy and the legislature’s support to absorb accumulated heavy losses of NT$400 billion, Wang said.
The Cabinet has budgeted NT$100 billion in subsidies each for this year and next year, which are still subject to the legislature’s approval.
‘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
RSS