Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen Duc Cong are workers at Dong Van Industrial Park (Ninh Binh). The couple only has Sundays off, the rest of the days they leave home from 7 am and only return at about 6:30 pm.
Just picking up his children from his paternal grandparents' house, Mr. Cong is busy preparing dinner again. The fan and air conditioner are turned on to reduce the child's heat, the washing machine takes advantage of working while cooking rice. After dinner, he takes a bath, cleans up, and tutors his children in studying before the whole family goes to bed.
From about 6:30 pm to 10 pm, almost every device in the house has to be used. If the electricity price is higher at that time, my family still has to use it because we cannot let our children eat rice at 10 pm or wait until midnight to turn on the air conditioner," Mr. Cong shared.
According to Mr. Cong, electricity bills are already a significant expense in the total monthly living expenses. If hourly electricity prices are applied and peak hours have higher prices, the family's electricity bill may increase, while the ability to change the time of electricity use is very limited.
Mr. Cong believes that with this proposal, the long-term solution may be to invest in rooftop solar power with a storage battery system. However, this is also not a small investment.
The income of workers' families is only enough to cover living expenses. Installing a solar power system is known to be economical, but to have enough capacity for equipment such as air conditioners, the cost is also high, not just wanting to do it," Mr. Cong shared.
Not only workers, many office workers also believe that they have almost no other choice. Ms. Nguyen Tra My (26 years old, office worker in Hanoi), said that she finishes work at nearly 6 pm every day. When she gets back to her rented room, she starts cooking, bathing, turning on the air conditioner and using electrical appliances for daily life.
What worries her is that the electricity bill in the rented area is higher than the normal domestic electricity price collected by the homeowner at a fixed rate. In the summer, when you have to use the air conditioner more, the monthly electricity bill already accounts for a significant amount of income.
According to Ms. My, office workers can hardly switch living activities to late nights or early mornings just to save electricity bills.
After work, it's almost 6 pm, when I get back to my room, it's past 6:30 pm. If I wait until late at night to cook rice or turn on the air conditioner, I won't have the energy to go to work the next day. It's difficult to save money because now when I get home, it's also the time when I have to use the most electricity," Ms. My said.
Assessing the proposal to supplement regulations on applying electricity prices during peak hours, off-peak hours and normal hours to residential customers when technical conditions permit, Dr. Nguyen Xuan Quang - Institute of Energy Technology, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, said that when the electricity industry included the phrase "when technical conditions are met" in the draft, it also means that they are building a long-term orientation rather than implementing it immediately.
Dr. Nguyen Xuan Quang also especially noted that the Ministry of Industry and Trade needs to carefully consider the impact of policies on vulnerable groups and low-income people. These are groups that are almost unable to invest in electricity storage equipment, energy management systems or smart electrical equipment to shift loads. Therefore, if the hourly electricity price mechanism is applied simultaneously, it is very easy to increase the burden of living costs for these subjects.
