Why is Electricity Tariff Increase Needed..? Part 2 of 2

Why is Electricity Tariff Increase Needed..? Part 1

Basis for a decision

This is the context within which the CEB has proposed a tariff revision and the PUCSL has to make a decision. No government can afford to pump LKR 59 billion into a bottomless pit. The ad hoc way in which pricing has been decided all these years has yielded a tariff structure that is wildly out of line with costs. Unless they are aligned and the government adopts a rational approach to supplying the electricity this middle-income country needs, no progress can be made.

The National Energy Policy of Sri Lanka gazetted on 10 June 2008 lays out the principles that must guide the PUCSL in its decision:

3.5 Adopting an Appropriate Pricing Policy

• The PUCSL will be empowered to regulate the energy sector including electricity and petroleum sub-sectors, to ensure effective implementation of the pricing policy.
• Appropriate pricing strategies will be formulated and implemented by PUCSL, which will prepare and regularly update plans to achieve a cost-reflective pricing policy for all commercial energy products (electricity, petroleum products, LPG) and implement them. These prices will include elements such as a reasonable return on equity, internal cash generation for capital investment and debt service.
  
  
• Necessary steps will be taken by PUCSL to ensure that the optimal energy supply expansion plans are implemented in time so that the cost reflective prices will be based on these optimal plans.
  
  
• A mechanism will be established by PUCSL to identify target groups of consumers that deserve special consideration owing to social needs or commercial realities.

Subsidies must be separated from tariff design.

In sum, prices must be cost-reflective. The question of subsidies must be separated from tariff design. Instead of throwing away LKR 59 billion on ad hoc bailouts and irrational subsidies, the government should focus subsidies on the families with the greatest difficulty in making ends meet, for example, by giving energy vouchers to Samurdhi households. It will take some time to set up such a system, while the new tariff must come into effect in April. This year’s tariff determination must include conditions for CEB to cooperate with the PUCSL to develop a better way to target and deliver subsidies as required by the National Energy Policy.

But interim relief is needed to cushion the impact for those who cannot easily afford the increase. The only quickly implementable solution is to give a credit, say of LKR 100, on the electricity bills of all households consuming less than 90 units a month (this should actually be pegged to average daily consumption for the billing period) may be implemented. A household consuming 30 kWh will pay an extra LKR 75 a month if the tariff proposal is implemented as proposed; a household consuming 60 kwh will pay LKR 174.15 more and a household consuming 90 kwh will pay LKR 432.60. The LKR 100 credit for this entire group will cost in the range of LKR 4.3 billion, which is way less than what the government pays to keep the government airlines afloat.

How do we get out of the hole?

Tariff design must contribute to bring down peak demand by around five percent. This is a policy objective pursued in many countries, especially in light of climate-change concerns. In our case, it is a necessity because that last five percent is busting the budgets of the government, the CEB, the CPC and of each household in the country.

If something is really important, one does not take half-hearted measures. One uses all the tools at one’s disposal. The most powerful tool is the price signal. The new tariff design that increases the unit price of electricity depending on level of consumption (e.g., a household with consumption below 90 units a month will pay LKR 8.50 per unit for all units, while a household with a consumption of 91 units will pay LKR 15 per unit, again for all units consumed), creates powerful incentives to reduce consumption. This must be supplemented by targeted messages reminding people to shift consumption from peak hours.

Demand side management can succeed if the price signals built into the new tariff structure are supplemented by incentives to high users. This will require additional investment in smart meters, ICT based feedback mechanisms are so on.Ideally, investment in smart meters for a specified number of high-volume users could be condition of the tariff approval.

The window of opportunity created by a tariff design that approaches cost-reflectivity and the likely cutover of Norochcholai Stage 2 next year must be used to implement a serious demand side management program that will allow all our people to use more energy as befits citizens of a middle-income country, but more intelligently than now.Until the core problem of unaffordable electricity can be solved, all other reforms become meaningless. The 2013 tariff approval is the place to start.

Why is Electricity Tariff Increase Needed..? Part 1

 Source : Lanka Business Online

Rohan Samarajiva heads LirneAsia, a regional think tank. He was also a former telecoms regulator in Sri Lanka.