Many households pay more, on the contrary, many households pay less.
Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN) has just proposed to the Ministry of Industry and Trade the mechanism and roadmap for applying two-component electricity prices.
Accordingly, the two-component electricity price includes the capacity price and the electricity price, which means the amount to be paid for the registered capacity and the actual electricity consumption, instead of only calculating the actual electricity consumption as at present.
Speaking with Lao Dong, Mr. Tran Viet Hoa - Director of the Electricity Regulatory Authority (Ministry of Industry and Trade) said that the project "Research and development of a roadmap for applying two-component electricity prices" will begin to be implemented on each customer file.
The two-component electricity price list fully reflects the costs of electricity production and business and regulates prices to maintain the average electricity price approved by competent authorities.
The calculation results clearly show the effectiveness of the 2-component electricity price when maintaining constant revenue, but many households pay more and conversely many households pay less compared to the current payment level with the same output and consumption structure.
That means that customers' electricity usage greatly affects the price they pay, forcing them to always pay attention to appropriate adjustments, bringing efficiency from both sides, electricity supply and electricity consumption.
No more leveling
Experts from the Vietnam Energy Council have made initial assessments and suggestions on this issue. Accordingly, the single-component electricity price (only calculating the electricity portion) currently applied in our country has the advantage of being simple, but does not accurately reflect the costs consumers cause to the system.
Applying additional power prices (in addition to calculating the amount of electricity consumed) will help encourage customers to use electricity efficiently, thereby increasing the electricity load factor, saving electricity costs, helping to reduce investment in power sources and expanding the grid.
For customers who register for a larger capacity than their actual usage needs, the electricity industry will recover the investment costs.
"In the context that electricity companies have applied electronic meters, especially for customers using electricity for production and business purposes, implementing electricity prices based on capacity and electricity is necessary to ensure that electricity prices accurately and fully reflect costs," the Vietnam Energy Council assessed.
According to the Vietnam Energy Council, the two-component electricity price will bring fairness to electricity users (customers using electricity for production and business purposes), encouraging customers to use electricity economically and efficiently.
For residential customers, power pricing in the form of meter fees eliminates the inconvenience of power cuts by the power company when electricity is not used for a long period of time.
For testing, experts from the Vietnam Energy Council suggested that EVN could apply a monthly capacity price lower than the actual cost of investing in providing electricity per kVA (a unit of measurement for apparent capacity) to customers, so that the electricity price does not need to decrease much compared to customers who have not applied the two-component price.
With a two-component electricity price, according to EVN, the electricity bill that consumers have to pay will include the cost of using capacity (essentially the fixed cost of the electricity supply process) and the part paid for consumed electricity (ie the variable cost).
Applying the 2-component electricity price plan, according to the assessment in the project, for households other than domestic use, the electricity usage costs of each household will be different.
For example, two households using electricity for non-living purposes have the same output of 275,000kWh/year but different electricity usage modes. If applying the current price list, these two households will pay the same bill. However, if applying the 2-component price list, when the household has a high load factor (the higher the load factor, the more efficient the load is, helping to save electricity better - PV), they will pay less electricity costs (due to reduced capacity costs).
