China News Service, Taipei, March 24 (Reporter Yang Chengchen) The Taiwan authorities recently decided to increase electricity prices in April, with an average increase of 11%, the largest increase in the past eight years. In the past few days, there has been a steady stream of criticism from Taiwan’s industry, private sector and professionals.
According to reports, the adjusted electricity price is an average of 3.45 yuan (NT$, the same below) per kilowatt hour. In terms of industrial electricity consumption, only industries whose electricity consumption decreased by more than 10% last year saw electricity price increases of less than 10%; very large user enterprises faced increases of up to 25%.
The Taiwan Chamber of Commerce and Industry proposed on the 24th that this comprehensive increase in electricity prices will impact the manufacturing industry and the operations of small-scale enterprises and weaken Taiwan's economic recovery. It "suggests that it is not appropriate to increase electricity prices in recent years." The rise and fall of electricity prices are closely related to energy policies and the electricity supply and demand structure. Taiwan's potential electricity demand is huge. It is recommended that the Taiwan authorities proceed from industrial development trends and strengthen energy supply resilience through diversified allocations.
Lin Wenchang, the former director of Taipower's second nuclear power plant, wrote to the media that the biggest purpose of this price adjustment is to subsidize the Taiwan Electric Power Company ("Taipower") as a public enterprise. Taipower's cumulative losses have reached more than 380 billion yuan, which is inseparable from energy policy. This is the inevitable result of the DPP's insistence on promoting the "non-nuclear homeland" policy.
He pointed out that although nuclear power cannot help Taipower completely solve its losses, if the authorities do not insist on "abolition of nuclear power", the four nuclear power plants can guarantee the supply of 60 billion kilowatt hours of electricity every year, which can save about 1.95 yuan in power generation costs per kilowatt hour. Helped Taipower reduce losses by more than 120 billion yuan. In this way, the pressure on rising electricity prices can be greatly alleviated. However, the Democratic Progressive Party was worried about losing votes and was unwilling to moderately raise electricity prices even though it knew Taipower was suffering huge losses. It even adopted the opposite strategy of "freezing increases" and then increase prices sharply after the election. This series of actions is entirely based on political considerations.
The "Central Bank" of the Taiwan authorities announced an "interest rate increase" the day before the electricity price increase plan was determined, on the grounds that it was "in response to the inflationary expectations that may arise from the increase in electricity prices." "I'm afraid that everything will rise in a chain, and the general public will not be able to afford it." Li Jiaxian, an educator, told reporters. In addition, during the term of the Democratic Progressive Party authorities, Taiwan has experienced multiple power outages. After the increase in electricity prices, whether it can provide stable power supply to the people ? If this is not done well, the public dissatisfaction will inevitably be even greater.
Taiwanese media reported that various consumer prices, including egg prices, housing electricity bills, and catering expenses, have all shown an upward trend recently. Wang Meihua, head of the economic affairs department of the Taiwanese government, said that a ramen shop that uses nearly 3,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per month has "only an extra 27 yuan" in daily electricity bills. The "Chief Writer's Office" of the "China Times" column published an article criticizing this statement. This statement once again proves that Wang Meihua is not a fan of the world. In addition to electricity bills, a store has other expenses. If the price increases in every link, the overall amount will not be small.
Taiwan's medical institutions are also one of the industries most affected. The medical industry estimates that if electricity prices increase by 10%, medical institutions across Taiwan will increase their electricity bills by NT$3 billion a year. Before the final plan is released, some private organizations believe that community hospitals may be on the verge of "turning off the lights." Regarding the medical community's hope that medical institutions will "freeze electricity prices", Wang Bisheng, deputy head of the health and welfare affairs department of the Taiwanese government, said on the 24th that "this should be impossible" and that the follow-up can only coordinate the increase and subsidy measures. (over)