The Red Light for Power Rationing Reflects President Tsai's Credibility Crisis

 The Red Light for Power Rationing Reflects President Tsai's Credibility Crisis

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

August 13, 2017

 Translation of an Excerpt

Domestic power supply has been dallying in between red lights in the past few days; appeals for "reactivating nuclear power plants" have therefore been circulating in the outside world. On August 12, big wigs in the industry/business sector met with Tsai Ing-wen; after the meeting, at one time, it was reported that President Tsai pledged that if power fell short, “nuclear power” would be one of the options; however, the Presidential Office immediately denied this, saying President Tsai still insisted on fulfilling the goal of "nuclear-free homeland in 2025," and would definitely not abandon it just because of one accident.

Facing accusations from the outside world that the Tsai government has not reviewed whether its own energy transformation plan has loopholes, it has been anxious to relegate the responsibility to the natural disasters and not enough efforts on the part of Taipower for repair works, even hinting that the backlash of public opinion in recent days was only because of “people with ulterior motives” wanted to manipulate the situation to reactivate Nuclear Power Plant No. 4.

President Tsai at the time said, even if we shut down all nuclear power plants, Taiwan will not have power shortages, adding that by raising the ratio of power generation by natural gas to 50%, the domestic electricity rates would not rise sharply. And now, although only half of the reactors in the existing nuclear power plants have been shut down, a power shortage crisis is already imminent; the ration of power generation by natural gas has not been raised to 50%, but Taipower has spent close to NT$10 billion in the cost of procurement, foreshadowing future price hikes in electricity rates.

Not only that, Taipower has been bound by a policy of “demand bidding” to buy power from industries at high prices; the probability of buying such expensive electricity has been getting higher and higher. The policy of “demand bidding” was originally designed for power distribution; it has changed in nature, becoming a "fig leaf" to aid government propaganda that Taiwan does not have a power shortage; the public will eventually have to pick up the tab for the high prices Taipower has to pay for electricity. This wave of power rationing red lights reflects the loopholes of the pledges made in President Tsai’s energy transformation; it has also aggravated her credibility crisis.

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