State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) plans to raise electricity rates for heavy users by an average of 8.4 percent from next month, as rising global energy prices have significantly eaten into its bottom line, snapping four consecutive years of price freezes.
Industrial users such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would bear the brunt of the hikes, facing an increase of 15 percent.
About 22,000 heavy users would be affected, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement after a meeting of the electricity price review committee yesterday.
Photo: CNA
The rate for heavy users of electricity would climb to NT$3.1039 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), from NT$2.699 per kWh, while the price for extra-heavy users would rise to NT$2.5707 per kWh, from NT$2.2354, it said.
Households with monthly consumption of more than 1,000kWh would see their rate rise 9 percent, it said.
“As persistent fuel price hikes have put Taipower’s operations under heavy pressure, it should [raise electricity tariffs to] reflect costs to keep power supply stable,” Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Chuan-neng (林全能) told a news briefing in Taipei after the meeting.
“Compared with price hikes of between 13 and 45 percent in some countries, Taiwan’s price increase ... falls on the low end of the global price hike range,” Lin said. “We have considered Taiwan’s global competitiveness in the pricing adjustments.”
Global crude oil prices are expected to rise to US$107 per barrel this year, which would push natural gas prices up to US$19.63 per cubic meter, the ministry said, adding that global coal prices are expected to rise to US$307 per tonne.
Taipower would see an increase in costs of about NT$300 billion (US$10.13 billion) this year due to surges in global fuel prices, it said.
To help small businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the ministry is freezing rates for major users in six sectors: food processing, farmers, fishers, and department store, movie theater and gym operators.
The ministry is also keeping electricity rates unchanged for households, small-scale retailers, restaurants and schools with a monthly consumption of less than 1,000kWh, in an attempt to prevent inflation from rising further.
About 12.72 million users would benefit from the price freeze, it said.
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
INTENSIFYING THREATS: Beijing’s tactics include massive attacks on the government service network, aircraft and naval vessel incursions and damaging undersea cables China is prepared to interfere in November’s nine-in-one local elections by launching massive attacks on the Taiwanese government’s service network (GSN), a report published by the National Security Bureau showed. The report was submitted to the Legislative Yuan ahead of the bureau’s scheduled briefing at the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The national security team has identified about 13,000 suspicious Internet accounts and 860,000 disputed messages, the bureau said of China’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan. The disputed messages focus on major foreign affairs, national defense and economic issues, which were produced using generative artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed through Chinese
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
RSS