PLN freezes power prices for 1,200 & 2,200 VA customers
Tuesday, April 7 2015 - 01:37 PM WIB
?We don?t have any plan to raise power prices for 1,300 VA and 2,200 VA household customers until December 2015,? PLN?s President Director Sofyan Basir said in a statement, adding price for such customers is fixed at Rp 1,352 kWh through
Customers with voltage capacities of 1,300 and 2,200 are known as household with small income.
Besides, PLN said it won?t raise power prices for 450 and 900 VA customers as well as small businesses and social entities. Customers with voltage capacities of 450 and 900 are known as poor households.
PLN is thus freezing power prices for a total of 58 million customers or 97 percent of its customers through the end of this year.
Under the existing regulation, PLN is allowed to regularly adjust its prices for most types of customers, including 1,300 and 2,200 VA customers. However, the firm decided to postpone price adjustment for these two types of customers on the grounds that they have experienced price adjustment in phases from July of 2014 through November of 2014. The decision was taken in order to alleviate the economic burdens of these two types of customers, which total 8.8 million in numbers.
As a consequence, PLN said, its revenue will fall. ?We shall however compensate the loss of income by implementing efficiency programs, including replacing oil fuels with gas and coal to fuel power plants,? Sofyan said.
PLN recently announced new prices for household costumers in the 3,500 VA-capacity and above category, business costumers and government offices subscribing 6,600 VA-capacity, industries subscribing above 200,000 VA-capacity, street lights, and special services.
The electricity tariff of these five categories of consumers is now set at Rp 465.89 per kWh, effective April.
Editing by Johannes Simbolon