Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Taipei City Government
A STUDY BY National Taiwan University recently showed that Indigenous households are disproportionately impacted by energy poverty. Energy poverty is a term defined by using more than 10% of one’s income on electricity fees.
The study found that energy poverty affects 52.2% of disadvantaged households in designated Indigenous areas, while energy poverty affects 42.9% of disadvantaged households in Han majority areas. Likewise, 57.3% of households surveyed reported being unable to pay power bills at least once, while 2.9% had power cut off. 32.4% of those surveyed who had air conditioning struggled to pay for its use, while 37% could not afford replacing their current air conditioning unit. 42% were unaware of programs to partially subsidize the replacement of outdated power-wasting appliances, while 10.2% were aware of such subsidies but still could not afford replacing air conditioning units with them.
The study was conducted by surveying 578 disadvantaged Indigenous households. The survey’s findings were framed by researchers at National Taiwan University’s Risk Society and Policy Research Center as showing the persistence of “green colonialism” in Taiwan.
Earlier this month, Greenpeace Taiwan criticized new draft amendments to the Energy Administration Act, which would exempt energy users who had a new or recently expanded energy contract from being required to install self-use power generation equipment or energy storage equipment. The draft bill, which was passed by the Economics Committee of the legislature, differed from the Executive Yuan’s version of the bill, which would have required electricity users who reach a certain level of energy consumption to install such equipment.
In particular, the bill has been criticized as letting Taiwan’s 400 heavy energy users off the hook. Such heavy energy users constitute more than 40% of Taiwan’s energy use. As such, it is thought that such energy users may expand contracts to avoid falling under this requirement, or that they may take advantage of the five-year grace period that the legislation allows for.
Greenpeace Taiwan has, consequently, called for the bill to be returned to committee review and suggested that the legislature was simply following what the Chinese National Federation of Industries had wished for. The Federation had previously called for expanded contracts to be exempt from such regulations.
Contention about energy in Taiwan is expected to continue, then. The government has long had priorities on trying to please industrial users, at the expense of regular citizens, and this may be another case in point.