should do it this year, the covid has really hit people hard.
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For reference:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/
Even with summer rates, electricity in Taiwan is still relatively cheap.
I don’t see Taiwan in there.
But US average is skewed as US is a huge country with sometimes privatized utilities. That means it could be really cheap in some places, and a lot in others. Some states are expensive while other states are cheap. You will find countries with cheap electricity rates tend to have government owned, and not privatized utility.
But I think Taiwan’s max summer rate (around 6.4nt per kwh, or around 18 cents USD) is still pretty low compared to EU countries (who basically uses climate change and green energy as an excuse for insane energy prices). But then again in the EU you really don’t need AC most the time (and most homes don’t even have them), but instead use oil/gas for heating. I guess heat pump could be used in milder days but I’m not sure how the economics compare…
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Modern heat pumps work efficiently in most environments. Seems lots of installers are still stuck in the old knowledge though.
Yea, heat pumps are REALLY efficient even compared to burning gas or other fuels. However if it’s too cold, it won’t work as well unless geothermal solutions are used. One problem is the cost of electricity in the EU. I do not know how much other fuels cost compared to electric heating, but the fact that electric heating is seldom used in the EU tells you something (basically it’s mostly radiators supplied by either a oil burning boiler or gas, or even firewood), whereas electric heating is REALLY common in the US.
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My Kool Electric Story
I moved into this apartment a few years ago. Signed a lease. Water/gas/internet all included in the rent. The only bill that was NOT included was the electricity.
No problemo!
So a few months go by and I get my first electric bill. It was the usual layout. It told me how many units I had used, price per unit, total amount payable etc. However, at the bottom there was a deduction for the same amount as the total. In other words, the amount payable was: $0!
I couldn’t figure it out. Perhaps the previous tenant had overpaid? Or maybe the landlord paid it? In any case, I didn’t have to pay it, so there wasn’t a huge incentive to probe the matter too deeply.
A couple of months pass and I get my next bill. Same thing again. Total: $x, minus: $x, amount payable: $0.
Every time I got a bill it was the same story. In the back of my mind I was starting to get slightly concerned. I didn’t want to suddenly get slapped with a huge bill!
Fast forward a year and, out of the blue, I get a message from my landlord. She has been contacted by the electricity company to say that the bill for my apartment hasn’t been paid and if it isn’t paid immediately(!) the power would be turned off, the meter would be removed and I would be charged for the privilege. I called her up and explained that I had received all of these bills but it looked like they had already been paid.
“I thought that you had been paying it!” says I.
“Nope,” says she.
So I go to the electricity company the next day and explain the situation. The guy there wasn’t particularly helpful and just shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know and wasn’t inclined to find out. So I suggested to Captain Enthusiasm that perhaps he could start by giving me a print-out of the energy consumption for my address.
I sat down with a coffee and braced myself to see if I could figure this out. Something became immediately apparent. At the date when I moved in the monthly electric bill dropped… drastically! The person who had lived there previously had been using like x10 more electricity than me (no exaggeration)! Based on this hunch I went back and translated the small print on my bill. Sure enough, it turns out that the amount deducted was a reward for my reduced energy consumption. The power company must compare each month with the same month of the previous year!
The long and short of it is: I got a whole years worth of electricity for free!
Result!
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I loled.
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Yea Taipower gives energy saving incentives out for using less electricity than the same period in the previous year. So if say on June/July billing period (Taipower bills bimonthly) you used 10,000kwh. You would end up paying maximum rate for most of that, and so you’re going to be paying a LOT. Probably expect a bill of close to 50,000nt for that billing period.
But the next year you got smart about your electricity usage, used more energy saving AC units, installed heat pump (to minimize the amount of electricity used for both heating water AND AC), solar panel, etc, and this year’s June and July billing period you cut your energy usage down to 5000kwh.
Instead of paying the normal rate for 5000kwh of electricity, you get a energy reduction discount and you might end up paying even less for electricity this year because of that. Essentially by being a high power user you are subsidizing everyone else.
But Taipower essentially generates electricity and sells it below cost, because Taipower is state run. They are not in it for the money. I’m surprised a bunch of people don’t start mining bitcoins in Taiwan.
Funny you should say that!
I was thinking exactly the same thing, about people mining bitcoin!
In truth, the apartment is on the top floor and gets really hot in the summer. So my guess is it was someone who stayed home a lot and had the A/C cranked to 11, 24/7.
Regarding Taipower being state-run, that’s such an interesting point! As a government run enterprise they have a genuine incentive to reward people for reducing energy consumption. Compare that to countries where energy providers have been privatized. What company in their right mind are going to reward their customers for using less of their product?! It would be sheer madness!
It’s a very strong argument why privatizing certain industries is not always for the public good (in my opinion).
People bitch and moan, but there are certain things that Taiwan really gets right.
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Everything that matters is government owned, same as communist China.
Taipower is state owned, so is CPC.
So the government really has a LOT of power to fix fuel and electricity prices. This is also why they are able to cancel summer rates because of the pandemic. A privatized utility company would not be able to do this.
TRA is also state owned. As are many important industries.
In America such thing would be denounced as “socialist/soviet”.
But Taiwan and China aren’t that different after all. In fact Mao Zedong graduated from Wanpu Military Academy, as are many founding member of the CCP. And in those days Taiwan wasn’t anymore free compared to China.
My grandfather graduated from Wanpu Military Academy by the way.
Yep,
So true. If you compare, say, a one hour train journey in Taiwan with the same journey in the UK the difference in cost is simply astounding.
I realise there are innumerable factors to consider (currency value, minimum wage, fuel costs…) and I don’t even pretend to understand all the ins and outs. But when it’s all said and done it has a lot to do with the fact that TRA are motivated to provide a functional service that everyone can afford (which I think they do rather well). Whereas rail operators in some other countries are motivated purely by profit (and the service they provide is often poor).
…cue the inevitable argument from one of our American friends that “the market” ensures that the best provider will prevail…
I don’t buy it.
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Though TRA is still kinda corrupt and allowed a third rate contractor derail a train killing people…
Yes, I know the accident you’re referring to.
Taiwan’s rail industry is not my area of expertise by a long stretch. So I’m unqualified to go into details. But the word that really sticks out is “contractor”.
It seems to me that shopping out jobs to the highest bidder is just a slippery slope towards privatization. The government want a job done so they give it to a private company. That private company are interested in making the most amount of money for the least amount of effort. So corners get cut. (This is happening to the National Health Service in the UK as we speak.)
Better to keep it all in-house. And (crucially!) keep it funded! I understand this comes with it’s own set of problems (lack of competition, sluggish bureaucracy) but it comes from a better place than some billionaire trying to fleece commuters with a shoddy product.
If you’re in the market for a toothbrush, great! You can shop around. There is variety. The market performs it’s purpose. But if you are buying a train ticket there usually aren’t that many games in town.
It seems like July will be exempted, but only for those under 1000kwh, which I am, but I’m in some weird place that used to be 3 floors and somehow two share a meter, but there’s one bill for all, and the total is way over 1000kwh, though my own apartment is under. So it’s not going to help me but most of you living in normal places will benefit.
This sucks. I never even knew about summer electricity prices because every place I lived in before charged a flat rate. Overcharged, I later discovered.
The article goes on to mention:
Under the measure, these households in July will have to pay higher than usual electricity rates, but only starting from the 1,001th kWh of electricity they use, Lo said.
So it should still get a bit cheaper for everyone, at least.
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How does this make sense when my teens are forced to be home and a lot of work is at home now. Are they not aware that the current situation means more use of electricity? Especially during the summer. God. Are they that out of touch. 
There should be a lower than normal rate imposed across the board because of the current situation. Or even credits or forgiveness.
Well, at least they did not limit the reduced rates to Taiwanese Citizens 
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Only because of their own IT incompetence in matching ARC address to meters. 
Joke would be on them because my meter is officially assigned to my landlord for tax reasons 