The second electricity price review meeting this year is expected to be held before the end of September this year and will decide whether to increase electricity prices in October. The Executive Yuan has proposed to allocate an additional 100 billion yuan to Taipower's budget, but it still needs approval from the Legislative Yuan before it can be implemented. If the budget is not passed, Taipower's alternative plan shows that electricity rates may increase by 12% in October.
100 billion special subsidy budget
Since April 1 this year, Taipower has increased electricity rates by 11%, reducing losses per kilowatt hour from the original 1 yuan to 0.3 yuan, partly due to lower fuel costs. To this end, the Executive Yuan has added a special budget of 100 billion yuan to subsidize Taipower. This budget still needs to be reviewed and approved by the Legislative Yuan in the new session.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has also allocated a public budget of RMB 100 billion to subsidize Taipower, which is mainly used to subsidize electricity prices for people's livelihood. However, academics question Taipower's estimate of international oil prices as being too high and call for a recalculation. In addition, scholars remind that hedging measures should be taken to deal with the risk of exchange rate fluctuations.
According to data from Taipower's official website, statistics as of July this year show that the cost of electricity sales has changed compared with last year and the year before. Overall, the cost of electricity sales increased from 3.9083 yuan/kWh in 2022 to 4.1652 yuan/kWh in 2023, and then dropped to 3.7117 yuan/kWh in 2024, showing that fuel cost fluctuations are the main reason for changes in electricity sales costs. one.
Unstoppable electricity price deficit
Kuomintang legislator Luo Zhiqiang posted on Facebook on the 10th that if the Legislative Yuan fails to pass this budget, electricity prices in October may increase by another 12%. He criticized the government for "sucking the people's blood to make up for Taipower's losses."
Since the average increase of 11% in April, electricity prices have been raised three times in the past three years, with a cumulative increase of more than 30%. Two budgets totaling 200 billion yuan are still awaiting review by the Legislative Yuan.
He further criticized that after the DPP came to power, it did not use clean and low-cost nuclear power, but instead invested a lot of money in natural gas and green energy construction. He believes that these choices result in higher electricity price costs shared by the entire population. He emphasized that Congress should be consulted for future electricity price adjustments, and the relevant budgets of Taipower and the Ministry of Economic Affairs would be strictly reviewed to avoid unnecessary expenditures.
Future adjustments to electricity prices must listen to the opinions of Congress and must be scrutinized during the new session.
Taipower and the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ budgets, all non-essential items are not excluded from being frozen!
