Free Electricity for Clean Air?

Have you ever had free Electricity for a year - I have not – and I certainly did not think it would happen in Hong Kong!

It has come true with our latest Electricity Power Bill.

For the last two months we used HK$250 and that is really cheap, being US$30 or US$15 for a month! Then we get a government subsidy as part of their initiative to help reduce inflationary pressures to households. The end result is that we do not have to pay for electricity for the last 2 months and are unlikely to have to pay for the rest of the year!

This all came about through the latest budget wanting to help low income households. Happy with that though all households get this subsidy at a time when the government and community is also running programmes to promote consuming less energy to help reduce the impacts of electricity generation on the environment, through the likes of burning coal which contributes to a significant portion of the HK generated air pollution.

Surely the subsidy for the heavier Electricity users could be going to the installation of better energy generation technology rather than the pockets of these people who will probably start to use more electricity and therefore just adding to the air quality issue

I must thank the HK Government for this subsidy as it does allow a number of people to use the subsidy to promote and take action in helping

You can read the Budget item at http://www.budget.gov.hk/2008/eng/budget65.html

And the implementation of the item at http://www.fstb.gov.hk/tb/eng/info/electricitychargesubsidy.html

Grow well
Dr Merrin