Hanoi (VNA) - The common retailpower price is expected to be applied at the beginning of next year togetherwith the current tiered pricing mechanism, said Deputy Minister of Industry andTrade Do Thang Hai.

Hai toldthe regular Government meeting earlierthis week that the ministry has been collecting opinions on a newcalculation for power prices and would submit it to the Government for approvalin August.

Under the new rules, households could choose either a commonprice or the current tiered pricing mechanism. However, the current six tierswould be reduced to five as it ensures all households with power consumption ofless than 700 kWh (98.2 percent of the total) would not face increased power bills.

The one retail power price would be built based on theaverage electricity production cost of 1,864 VN D per kWh without value-added tax (VAT).

The study of the new calculation came about as manyhouseholds were surprised with surging power bills in May, June and July and togive more choices to customers.

Nguyen Tien Thoa, Chairman of the Vietnam Valuation Association and formerDirector of the PriceManagement Department underthe Ministry of Finance, said the one power retail price mechanismwould be easy for calculation, application and check-ups and supervision forall households as all customers buy the same goods from a supplier.

However, in terms of economy, a common price with scarceresources and insufficient supply would struggle to encourageelectricity-saving, he said.

He also said the one price mechanism would not ensure thesocial security policy for poor and policy prioritised households and it wasnecessary to make the average price higher.

Hai alsoanswered questions at the cabinet about surging power consumption in recentmonths.  

He said that in May, June and the first half of July, hotweather hit the whole country, especially in the north.

The national average temperature was much higher than theaverage temperature of 2019. As a result, electricity consumption increased asthe number of people using cooling equipment and air conditioners increasedsharply.

According to a report of Vietnam Electricity (EVN), there arecurrently 26 million customers nationwide using electricity. Of which, therewere 3.1 million customers with high electricity usage in May, up by 30 percentor more compared to April.

Among these, 1 million customers increased electricityconsumption by 50 percent and 215,000 saw their consumption rise by more than300 percent compared to April.

Compared to May, the number of customers with high powerconsumption increased in June to 7.6 million. 

Therefore, many customers have had questions about recordingelectricity consumption and rising bills.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade spoke with the customerswho had a sudden increase in electricity bills, he said.

The ministry has directed the EVN to improve customer service. At the same time, it asked the EVN to strictly handle violations of technicalerrors or indexing and others.

Along with that, the ministry also asked the EVN to provide customers'electricity bills through software and replace mechanical meters withelectronic versions./.