Tuesday, June 28th 2022
TSMC Expected to be Affected by Increased Electricity Costs in Taiwan
The island of Taiwan is in many ways very much still stuck in an era where the government controls most utilities and where there is little to no competition. For example, the government controls fuel prices, be that for your motor vehicle or for cooking and heating. This also applies to the cost of electricity in most cases and the Ministry of Economic Affairs has announced that the electricity price will increase by up to 15 percent for high usage customers, which translates to the industry. The increase might sound tiny at just over 1.3 cents per kilowatt hour, for a total cost of 10.43 cents per kWh. However, a company like TSMC that uses a lot of electricity, is expected to see an increase in costs of at least US$135 million per year, according to some Taiwanese news sources, while others claim it'll be as much as US$270 million.
TSMC does in all fairness produce some of its own electricity thanks to solar panels on many of its buildings and the company has also invested heavily in renewable energy. In fact, TSMC has bought up almost all available renewable capacity in Taiwan and the company is committed to using 100 percent renewable energy in the long term. Currently a mere 8 percent (based on 2020 estimates) is coming from TSMC's own efforts, but the company should be at somewhere around 12-15 percent overall. Even so, these extra costs are likely to be reflected in future customer pricing. It's the first price hike in four years, but as Taiwan is a manufacturing nation, TSMC is unlikely to be the only company affected, but the price hike is related to global inflation and is targeting high-usage businesses and consumers alike.
Sources:
Yahoo News Taiwan, via @dnystedt
TSMC does in all fairness produce some of its own electricity thanks to solar panels on many of its buildings and the company has also invested heavily in renewable energy. In fact, TSMC has bought up almost all available renewable capacity in Taiwan and the company is committed to using 100 percent renewable energy in the long term. Currently a mere 8 percent (based on 2020 estimates) is coming from TSMC's own efforts, but the company should be at somewhere around 12-15 percent overall. Even so, these extra costs are likely to be reflected in future customer pricing. It's the first price hike in four years, but as Taiwan is a manufacturing nation, TSMC is unlikely to be the only company affected, but the price hike is related to global inflation and is targeting high-usage businesses and consumers alike.
30 Comments on TSMC Expected to be Affected by Increased Electricity Costs in Taiwan
Why does the source link go to the same page as the main site link
Source is yahoo news so why doesn't this pages source link go to it.
Asking for a friend
Indeed seeing the link says source you'd hope it went to the correct site which is yahoo news not tpu main page.
I expect MOAR.
Swede - your bills will suffer too, we all shall suffer equally :D
Or, ask for a salary raise if you didn't get a fair one.
In case your girlfriend has moved in and you really trust your hand, ask her to start chipping in...
Nah, don't ever do that.
Yeah she'll start running a meter her self :laugh:
Price hike, wait what now.
Nuclear is one of the most expensive (if not the most expensive) to operate due to the amount of safeties and employees. The capital investment and O&M is probably also the highest. After 20-25 years usually requires a major overhaul/rebuild and 50-60 is usually end of life for the facility. Where it averages out is the amount of power it can produce. Usually Nuke plants are 500MW to over 4000MW.
Then you have waste storage that has to be maintained for the next 1000 years. Nuclear exists because the demand for electricity and not every place on the planet has hydro capacity, so have to make power some how.lol
Takes a lot of power to make metal from ore. :)
As for the increase estimates to TSMC I would say show me your actual bill please. Half of it is probably AC to keep employees cool lol. I would question that estimate.
See link below for the current and new pricing per kWh.
www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4582478This has already been discussed in a different thread. Not happy, take it up with @W1zzard.Not by much though, as most of our bills are below the 1000 kWh limit for consumers and you only pay a bit more for whatever is above that.Clarified the news post to show it's per year.
You have to overpay to private business just for generating you the electricity bill. They all use the same power sources and resell the same energy. All it does is add another link into the energy producer -> consumer chain.
I'm pretty sure that when it comes to the largest consumers such as TSMC, the ministry doesn't simply look up their standard price list for the item "extra-high-voltage consumer", even if such an item exists. These consumers have a role in keeping the country's electric grid stable. They may have restrictions like limited power use at certain hours, or they have to send some of their solar-generated power to the grid at certain hours. Quantities may be negotiated daily, and prices too.