The government should raise the electricity rate for industrial users while freezing the charge for household consumers, the New Power Party (NPP) caucus said yesterday.
“We believe the government’s priority should be to adjust the electricity price for industrial users in a more reasonable manner, but it should freeze the electricity charge for household consumers frozen,” NPP Chairwoman Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said ahead of a meeting of the electricity price review committee.
Industrial users accounted for 57 percent of Taiwan’s electricity consumption last year, while households consumed less than 19 percent, Chen said, citing a report by the Bureau of Energy.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
“With a reasonable adjustment of electricity prices for industrial users, the government can stop subsidizing them to more accurately reflect their electricity consumption. It would also reduce the financial losses sustained by Taiwan Power Co, and spur industries to invest in technologies to conserve and manage energy,” she said.
Data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics showed that the consumer price index rose 3.39 percent last month, the largest spike in nearly 10 years, Chen said.
Although adjusting electricity prices is necessary, household consumers should not be asked to pay higher fees at the moment, as it could lead to a comprehensive increase in the prices of consumer products, she said.
NPP Legislator Claire Wang (王婉諭) said the government in 2020 charged industrial consumers NT$2.4461 per kilowatt-hour, the world’s sixth-lowest rate.
Leading business groups in Taiwan, such as Formosa Plastics Group and Far Eastern Group, have indicated that a reasonable adjustment of electricity rates would be inevitable, she said.
Taiwan would be unable to keep its global competitive edge by relying on low water and electricity fees for industrial users as international energy prices continue to rise, Wang said.
The government should help businesses mitigate the effects of an electricity price hike, and ensure that they have reliable and quality access to a more efficient power system, she said.
“The difference between the industrial electricity rate and the price of green power would be minimized with a more reasonable electricity pricing scheme, which would give businesses a greater incentive to procure green power. This would also allow renewable energy to further develop in Taiwan,” Wang said.
Taiwan’s electricity rates are cheaper than those in other countries, which often leads to record-high demand for electricity and potential energy waste, Wang said.
This would not help the nation achieve net-zero carbon emissions, she added.
Setting a more reasonable electricity price would curb energy waste and give people greater motivation to save money, she said.
NPP caucus whip Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said the government has yet to present effective long-term solutions to enhance the resilience of Taiwan’s power grid.
“After Taiwan experienced a major power outage on March 3, the government pledged to present by the end of April a NT$100 billion [US$3.4 billion] plan to upgrade the nation’s power grid,” he said. “Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Tseng Wen-sheng [曾文生] later said the ministry would present a plan at the end of May, but we have yet to see it.”
An unstable electricity supply would not only disrupt people’s lives, but would also shake foreign investors’ confidence in Taiwan, as evidenced by American Chamber of Commerce Taiwan vice chairwoman Andrea Wu’s (吳王小珍) remarks last week, Chiu said.
“In addition to a more effective energy conservation policy, the government should amend the Energy Administration Act [能源管理法] to recognize businesses that achieve their energy conservation goals, and fine and assist those that failed to do so,” he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater