Additional Budget Up for Review Tomorrow, Union Urges Support for Subsidy
The Legislative Yuan will on November 4 review the 2026 general budget additional budget case, which includes a NT$71.1 billion subsidy budget for Taiwan Power Company. The Taipower union said on November 3 that Taipower's losses in recent years were mainly due to cooperating with the government's price stabilization policy and absorbing rising power generation costs, not poor management. The union stressed that since Taipower cooperated with the policy to stabilize electricity rates, it is reasonable for the government to allocate budget subsidies, and it called on the Legislative Yuan to pass the additional budget as soon as possible to maintain Taipower's financial soundness.
Low-Rate Policy Has Absorbed Over NT$340 Billion in Losses
The Taipower union pointed out that Taiwan has long maintained relatively low electricity rates. Taking basic residential electricity use as an example, the first-tier residential rate was NT$2.10 per kWh in 2004, while the current basic rate for usage under 330 kWh is NT$1.78 per kWh, even lower than 20 years ago and clearly disconnected from price increases over the past 22 years. Behind the low rates is Taipower's heavy financial burden: from 2022 to September 2026, Taipower has absorbed over NT$280 billion in losses to care for residential electricity use, and including small shops and disadvantaged groups, the cumulative subsidies to stabilize prices exceed NT$340 billion.
Matching South Korean Rates Would Turn Losses Into Profits
The Taipower union said the current accumulated losses are the result of bearing imported inflation on behalf of the public. If Taiwan had fully adopted South Korean electricity rates in 2023, Taipower would not only have avoided losses that year but would have generated a surplus of about NT$30 billion. Projected to 2024, adopting South Korean rates would have allowed Taipower to earn as much as NT$150 billion. Calculated from 2020 through 2025, Taipower could cumulatively have generated over NT$540 billion in surpluses, and by the end of 2026 it is estimated to have cumulatively generated over NT$660 billion in surpluses. The union believes this proves that, with labor-management cooperation, Taipower itself has strong profitability and operating capability if costs can be reasonably reflected.
Urges Moving Beyond Partisan Disputes to Face Budget Necessity
The Taipower union stressed that, facing the energy crisis triggered by global geopolitics from 2022 to the present, from the Russia-Ukraine war to the US-Iran conflict, governments have also subsidized electricity rates through fiscal budgets as an important supporting measure, easing household burdens while allowing power utilities to recover reasonable costs and maintain financial health. The union called on the government and the ruling and opposition caucuses in the Legislative Yuan to move beyond political disputes and take a more broader and longer-term view of the necessity of Taipower's additional budget case, balancing stable residential electricity use with the sustainable development of the power business.