Kuek Ser Kuang Keng | May 30, 11
Malaysiakini
The federal government has raised electricity tariff by an average of 7.12 percent beginning June 1 as part of its subsidy reduction exercise.
The average rise is 2.23cent/kW unit, from the current average rate of 31.31 to 33.54cent/kW unit.
Natural gas prices are also set to rise by RM3 per mmBtu every six months until it reaches market levels by 2016, when its price would be fully floated.
Domestic users who use less than 300kW unit per month will not be subjected to this new electricity pricing scheme, which is multi-tiered according to usage.
According to Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Peter Chin, that this means that 4.4 million or 75 percent out of a total 5.94 million households would be unaffected by the new tariff.
The rate of monthly usage below 200kW unit will stand at 21.8cent/kW unit while for usage between 201 to 300kW unit the tariff will remain as 33.40cent/kW unit.
For those using 301kW to 1000kW units, the tariff has been raised from 0.1 to 10 percent, or RM0.07 to RM30.30.
However this only involves 23.5 percent or 1.39 million domestic users.
The waiving of the electricity bill for those who record less than RM20 usage monthly would cease on Dec 31, 2011.
The government has to fork out RM122 million in order to provide free electricity to 900,000 such users.
Meanwhile, it was also anounced that the charge to Petronas for power generation would rise to RM13.70 per mmBtu from RM10.70.
[More to follow]