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Applying new electricity meters
The Ha Noi Electricity Company has begun applying new electricity meters with three-price levels for the production and service sectors after the new electricity prices went into effect on March 1st.
The installation of meters with these three-price levels will be finished by the end of May, says Nguyen Anh Tuan, head of the company’s Business Department.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, this is also the deadline for all meters nationwide to be set with these three-price levels. Electricity companies will be responsible for providing their customers with high quality meters, says the ministry.
These new meters will divide electricity prices into rush hours from 9.30-11.30am and 5pm-8pm; normal hours from 4-9.30 am, 11.30am-5pm, and 8-10pm; low hours from 10pm-4am.
Depending on when the customers use the most electricity, sector’s bill may top VND3,100 per kWh.
Pending the application of new meters, the consumers will pay according to the old electricity rates, says the ministry.
Households will be charged VND600 per kWh for the first 50 kWh and the maximum price from 401 kWh will be VND1,790. These prices will be applied to all consumers who use power from the national grid.
Retail prices in areas still not linked to the national grid will be decided on by provincial people’s committees after submitting plans to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
The State will provide subsidies for poor households and low-income families.
Students and labourers who rent house will also pay less because each house containing four people will have its own electricity meter. They will no longer have to share a meter with other houses, says Tuan.
Landlords will not be able to force them to pay more money, he adds.
However, some are worried that these new prices will be applied to electricity used before March 1st.
"I do not know how they can differentiate how much electricity I used for the days before March 1st and what electricity I used for the days after to calculate according to the old and new electricity prices, because my monthly electricity bill starts from the middle of this month to the middle of the next," says Ha Tuyet Mai in Dong Da District’s Dinh Cong Market.
"I wonder whether all our electricity will be calculated according to new prices. If so, we will lose a lot of money, especially people in the production and service sectors," says Mai.
"We will base our calculations on the average volume of electricity used by each household per day, then multiply this by the number of days with old price and the number of days with new price," says Tuan.
But small differences will be unavoidable, he adds.
VietNamNet/Viet Nam News
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