Engineers inspect Thai Binh thermal power plant in the northern province of Thai Binh. (Illustrative image. Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) - The Ministry ofIndustry and Trade has proposed a new retail electricity tariff which isdivided into five rates instead of six. In this option, 98.2 percent ofhouseholds in the country would see no increase or even lower power bills.
Several options for calculating power billsof households were recently raised for comments, but the ministry opted for onethat divided household electricity tariffs into five ranges: range 1 for kWhfrom 0 to 100 (1,549 VND), range 2 from 101 to 200 (1,878 VND),range 3 from 201 to 400 (2,431 VND), range 4 from 401 to 700 (2,701VND) and range 5 from 701 upwards (2,878 VND).
In comparison, the electricity tariff iscurrently divided into six ranges: range 1 from kWh 0 to 50 (1,549 VND), range2 from 51 to 100 (1,600 VND), range 3 from 100 to 200 (1,853 VND), range 4 from201 to 300 (2,340 VND), range 5 from 301 to 400 (2,615 VND) and range 6 from401 upwards (2,701 VND).
In this option, the ministry said that theretail price for range 5 was two times higher than that of range 1 and the gapwas reasonable, citing the gaps in other countries like the US, the Republic ofKorea, Thailand and Laos ranged from 1.65 to three times.
The ministry added that the new retailelectricity tariff following this option would encourage electricity saving,while preventing unexpected increases in the sums paid for power bills byhouseholds in peak months.
According to the ministry, with this option,households who consumed less than 700kWh per month (accounting for 98.2 percentof the total number of households in the country) would see no increase or evenlower power bills.
Other households would see an averageincrease of 29,000 VND in their monthly electricity bills, equivalent to 1.1 percentof the sum paid for power bills.
The ministry also proposed other optionswhich divided retail electricity tariffs into one, three and four ranges.
Statistics of Vietnam Electricity showed thathouseholds using less than 300kWh per month totalled more than 22 million,accounting for 72.6 percent of the total number of households in the countryand 60 percent of the power consumption.
About 1.2 million households used from 400kWhto less than 700kWh. As many as 456,000 households used more than 701kWh permonth, accounting for 13 percent of power consumption.
In the option that had only onerange for retail electricity tariff proposed at 1,897 VND per kWh, 18.6million households using 0-200kWh per month would see their power billsincrease by between 17,000 VND and 36,000 VND while households using more powerwould see decreases in power bills. The ministry said that this option wouldnot encourage power saving.
In the options that divided electricitytariff into three and four ranges, millions of households would see higherpower bills.
Vietnam was gearing up preparations to launcha competitive retail market in 2021. The country expected to have a fully competitiveretail market from 2023./.
VNA
