The Executive Yuan stated today that it will soon announce an action plan to encourage various county and city governments to conserve electricity.
In his administrative report to the Legislature last month, Premier Mao Chi-kuo elaborated that in order for the nation to provide ample, stable, reliable and low-carbon supply of as well as efficient use of electricity, the Executive Yuan has planned to adopt viable measures to conserve energy, an issue which attained strong consensual support in the national energy conference held earlier this year. These measures are currently being formulated by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and will be made known to the public upon completion.
The power shortage problem should not be dealt with solely from the supply side, as promotion of power conservation by consumers is a viable option on the demand side, the Executive Yuan stated.
For a long time, most of the public has neither understood nor participated in power-saving measures, which were promoted by the central government and executed by the Taiwan Power Co. Hence, the plan currently under formulation will change past policy thinking by implementing and promoting various creative conservation measures via open data, idea collection, civic consciousness and public supervision.
The Executive Yuan emphasized that the power conservation plan will focus on reorienting thinking and actions rather than providing subsidies to large-scale infrastructure projects. Through open data and big-data analysis regarding electricity, the administration hopes to assist county and city governments to formulate concrete, viable and regionally suited power conservation objectives and measures.
In addition, via mechanism design and crowdsourcing, the administration hopes to inspire the public to come up with various creative power conservation methods and also help monitor their execution. In the future, the administration will collaborate with civic groups to rouse citizens' consciousness and enthusiasm, so that everyone can do his or her part in electricity conservation and thus achieve the policy objective of users saving their own electricity.
The power conservation plan is formulated in three tiers based on users: industries, organizations and the general public. Practical incentives will be provided to county and city governments that participate proactively and perform outstandingly in the plan, the Executive Yuan stated. Moreover, various power-saving tips will be made available to the general public through diverse channels while examplars of success will be made known for emulation. People can also share their own innovative power conservation ideas with the whole citizenry.