Accordingly, in the Draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Electricity Law, the Ministry of Industry and Trade proposes to supplement regulations on applying electricity prices according to peak hours, off-peak hours and normal hours for customers using domestic electricity when technical conditions permit.
Rush hour is when households use the most electricity.
Every month, around the beginning of the month, Ms. Nguyen Thi Nam - a worker at Chau Son Industrial Park (Ninh Binh), carefully records family expenses. Food expenses, children's tuition fees and electricity bills are fixed expenses. In summer, electricity bills often increase by several hundred thousand VND because every night the family has to turn on the air conditioner for 2 young children to sleep.
During the day, the whole family goes to work and school, and only has time to reunite in the evening. All activities such as cooking, washing clothes, using air conditioning, heating and cooling take place mainly in the evening. If the electricity price at peak hours is applied from 5:30 PM to 10:30 PM later, my family will probably have to pay more money," Ms. Nam said.
Assessing the proposal of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Dr. Nguyen Xuan Quang - Institute of Energy Technology, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, said that the positive point is that this mechanism will contribute to regulating load. When peak hours of electricity prices are higher, people will consider switching some activities to low hours if possible. This helps reduce pressure on the national power system and limit the risk of overload.
However, this policy will certainly create a wave of widespread impact and strong differentiation between social groups, especially vulnerable groups.
Rush hour is also the time when households use the most electricity: cooking, using air conditioners, household appliances and serving daily life. If electricity prices are higher during this time frame, the electricity bill costs of many households will increase," Dr. Nguyen Xuan Quang assessed.
Can put pressure on "expected inflation
Besides the direct impacts on people's living costs, Dr. Nguyen Quoc Viet - Lecturer at the University of Economics (Vietnam National University, Hanoi) said that it is necessary to more carefully assess the impact of this policy on inflation and inflation expectations of the economy. Because in the past time, after the Middle East conflict broke out, world energy prices and increased import costs have created pressure on the domestic price level, putting pressure on inflation.
According to Dr. Nguyen Quoc Viet, all proposals to adjust price increases for essential goods with large spillover effects need to be considered very carefully. In which, electricity is a particularly sensitive commodity group because it not only directly affects people's costs but is also an input for most production, business and service activities.
Electricity is an input factor for many industries, from industrial production, food processing, transportation to commerce and services. Therefore, increased electricity costs will lead to increased production and supply costs of goods and services, thereby creating pressure on the general price level of the economy. Once a new price level has been formed, pulling prices back is very difficult," Dr. Nguyen Quoc Viet analyzed.
According to Mr. Viet, the most worrying thing is not only the direct impact on the consumer price index (CPI), but also the "expected inflation" effect. If the electricity price adjustment directly affects the residential sector, especially households, the spillover effect and impact of expected inflation will be much greater.
Dr. Nguyen Quoc Viet emphasized that the goal of adjusting load and using electricity effectively is necessary in the context of increasing electricity demand, but for the residential customer group, the implementation of the hourly electricity price mechanism needs to be carefully studied to ensure both improving the operation efficiency of the electricity system and limiting unwanted impacts on people's lives and macroeconomic stability.
