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Government needs to be direct over
energy rates
By Hwang Jenn-jiang 黃鎮江
The Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條例) was put on hold for a long eight
years before it was finally passed last year. One of the reasons for the long
delay was the issue of “wholesale rates” on which the government and businesses
could never come to an agreement. Unexpectedly, one year and three months after
the act was passed, disagreements about rates are cropping up again.
The government is willing to violate agreements it has already made and lose the
confidence of the public for the simple reason it does not have the courage to
raise rates.
Nothing is ever for free. Each policy represents a promise. Nations around the
world all have to make it clear where money is going to come from when they draw
up renewable energy policies. As the organization responsible for enacting
policies and purchasing power from the private sector, there is no way the
Taiwan Power Co can absorb the tens of billions extra it will cost each year to
obtain renewable energy and, judging from the content of the act, there are only
two possible sources for this money. One possible source would be to increase
the cost of electricity, while the second will involve the government allotting
a certain amount of its budget to deal with the increased costs.
Households, shops and industrial users would be responsible for the first
option. They would pay for what they use, which is in line with the fairness
principle in that only the user pays. In the second scenario, everyone in Taiwan
would be responsible for covering the costs, which is not only unfair, it would
also make the government very worried about its finances collapsing.
When the government is worried about public discontent and does not have the
nerve to increase the cost of electricity, which is the source of its revenue in
this case, the only choice left is to handle things from the side of its own
expenditure. In this case, the government would be dealing with renewable energy
suppliers and this would involve hassling them to assure fixed prices for
electricity. Regardless of what happens, the government at the very least must
keep its actions in line with the principle of protecting trust. With the
government’s house in such disorder, a debacle similar to that of the Fourth
Nuclear Power Plant would cause the government to not only damage its image as
the public loses faith because of a lack of sincerity, it would also greatly
harm the future of Taiwan’s renewable energy industry.
The only way to solve these problems is for the government to stop pandering to
public opinion to win voters over and instead take advantage of the recent
uptick in the economy and tell our public the truth about electricity costs. It
should tell our citizens exactly know how much of each watt of electricity it
uses is sourced from renewable energy, as it costs more, and come up with
reasonable increases in prices that people can afford. This is the price our
public said it was willing to pay when it committed to slowing down climate
change and protecting the earth. This is also why the government drew up
renewable energy policies in the first place.
Hwang Jenn-jiang is a professor at National University of
Tainan’s Department of Greenergy.
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