President-elect Lai Ching-te (賴清德) says that improving energy efficiency and reducing consumption should be a priority over new electricity generation. Lai made the comments at the opening ceremony of a Lunar New Year sales event for an electronic household appliance retailer.
Lai says that Taiwan can accomplish the goal of doubling the level of energy efficiency from 2% to 4% every year through 2030, a goal that is part of a pledge made by countries at the COP28 summit last December. He points out that one of his policy plans is to use government funds to upgrade all household appliances in Taiwan to those with level 1 efficiency ratings, the highest an appliance can have. Lai adds that he plans to collaborate with industry to improve enterprise energy efficiency using investment incentives and deductions, subsidies, and insurance schemes.
The president-elect says that there is no shortage of electricity in Taiwan, and that the backup capacity rate is between 6% and 10%. Lai continues that while he welcomes continued domestic and foreign investment into renewable energy sources, the first step should be reducing energy usage. He says that this is also how Taiwanese families plan their finances, because saving money is easier than making money.
Lai says that about 20,000 large companies are responsible for about half of Taiwan’s total daily electricity consumption of 40GW. He emphasizes that if these companies can reduce their power consumption by 10%, about 2GW can be saved, which is equivalent to a nuclear power plant with two generators.