An internal report of state-owned Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) showed that the company is seeking government approval to raise electricity rates by almost 6 percent on average to make up for huge losses.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs would next week hold a power rate assessment review meeting to discuss whether Taipower would be allowed to hike electricity rates next month.
The state-run company has shouldered NT$422.9 billion (US$12.82 billion) in accumulated losses.
Photo: CNA
To prevent further losses, the company needs to generate an additional NT$50 billion in revenue this year through electricity rate hikes, Taipower said.
Its report showed that rates for household users and small businesses, which consume less than 330 kilowatt-hours (kWh) a month, would be raised by 11 to 33 percent.
Bills for household users and small businesses that consume more than 330kWh a month would rise no more than 10 percent under a progressive tariff mechanism, the report showed.
Rates for the industrial sector are expected to be raised no more than 5 percent, it said.
The measures would bring average rate hikes to almost 6 percent as a whole, it said.
Taipower considered rate increases after the Legislative Yuan cut the general government budget plan, including two NT$100 billion subsidy projects for the power company, as well as other subsidies that would be added to its construction funds for outlying islands, the utility said.
Earlier this week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said the ministry would account for the rate hikes effects on inflation, adding that the government is determined to keep the local consumer price index (CPI) from rising more than 2 percent, an alert level set by the central bank.
In the first two months of this year, the CPI grew 2.12 percent, while the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics late last month forecast that inflation would reach 1.94 percent this year.
The rate hikes aim to allow the power supplier to sell electricity at a price closer to its costs, the Taipower report said.
Taipower chairman Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生) had said he hoped the local electricity rate structure would be more reasonable, particularly for smaller households and business users.
If the rate hike plan is approved in the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ power rate review meeting, about 13.6 million households and 910,000 small businesses would be affected, Taipower said.
The rates for industrial users, regardless of whether they are high-voltage users such as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) or other companies, are expected to rise, it added.
Despite the electricity rate increases, it is unlikely that the company would break even this year, as it has to consider the effect of inflation on household users and the competitiveness of Taiwan’s industries, it said.
‘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