Because of the NIMBY (not in my back yard) difficulty in developing new power units in recent years, Taiwan is facing a problem of power supply shortage. Recently the Energy Commission has established the deregulation schedule of Taiwan’s electricity industry. In the draft of the Electricity Act Amendments the vision of the power industry reform has the features entailing the issues such as open access, the wheeling scheme, direct access, ISO establishment and its interaction with power utility companies, deregulation of contestable customer, obligation to supply and etc. Among them the issue of how to design the necessary measures for coordinating the obligation to serve with the deregulation of contestable customer in electricity retail market is very important to the stakeholders.
The purpose of this study includes:1. to study the relevant issues regarding the obligation to supply of power utility companies under deregulation; 2. to explore the relevant issues regarding the deregulation of contestable customer in power market and 3. to study the necessary measures and strategies for Taiwan Power Company to cope with the deregulation of contestable customers. In order to achieve the above goals, this study first identified the definition of the obligation to supply and the related problem settings and defined the research outline. Then we collected and analyzed the information regarding the deregulation of electricity retail markets in different countries.
Following the analysis, the results were put and scrutinized against relevant issues of retail market deregulation in the articles of the draft Electricity Act Amendments. Finally, two workshops or conferences were held for stakeholders to facilitate the exchange of ideas and to reach agreements on the issues above mentioned. According to the major findings of this study and the conclusions of the conferences the policy implications and the necessary strategies were made and suggested to the relevant decision-makers in both government and Taiwan Power Company.