The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT.
Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March approved a proposal to raise prices depending on the type of user and range of power consumption.
The plan called for a 3 to 5 percent increase for most households, and a hike of up to 25 percent for consumers of 500 gigawatt-hours or more per month.
The latter group mainly comprises chipmakers, data centers and telecom operators.
The price hikes took effect in April.
The Energy Administration said in a news release that adjusting electricity rates is governed by Article 49 of the Electricity Act (電業法).
This law and associated regulations state that an electricity price committee should be convened twice a year to determine prices based on a stipulated formula, the agency said, adding that the legislature approved the measures nine years ago.
The agency urged the public to support the price adjustments by state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) in light of soaring global energy costs after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Last year, Taipower spent NT$600 billion (US$18.44 billion) on importing hydrocarbons, double what it spent before the start of the conflict, it said.
Industrial electricity prices from 2020 to last year increased 160 percent in France and 87 percent in South Korea, two countries mainly dependent on nuclear power, the agency said.
Electricity prices for households and small businesses — the best indicators of the impact of price changes on the public — increased 7.1 percent and 12.2 percent during the same period, it said.
Low electricity prices meant Taipower was operating at a loss, and had to be subsidized by taxes, it said.
In effect, the average Taiwanese taxpayer is subsidizing heavy power consumers, it added.
Taipower is forecast to record losses of NT$382.6 billion if electricity rates are not increased this year, it said.
Executive Yuan spokesman Lin Tze-luen (林子倫) said the Cabinet “expresses its disapproval of the legislature’s passage of the resolution and emphasizes that ensuring stable electricity supply should not be a partisan issue.”
The price adjustments were made in accordance with the Electricity Act, which requires the government to implement the energy price committee’s decision on rate adjustments, he said.
“As branches of the government, the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan should, based on the Constitution, stay within their stipulated prerogatives and responsibilities,” Lin said.
World energy prices have soared due to the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, creating immense fiscal pressure on Taipower, Lin said.
Rising power rates are unavoidable if Taipower is to be a commercially viable enterprise, he said.
The KMT caucus said in a statement that the resolution was “the first step and a gunshot” against the government’s energy policy from Taiwanese.
The government has over the past few years “provided NT$450 billion in subsidies to Taipower, but the company remains on the brink while green energy companies are enjoying a glut,” it said.
The KMT will make further demands of the current and future administration to provide supplementary measures for the nation’s energy structure, extend the life of certain power plants and provide a strategy for Taipower’s operations, it said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS