The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) has asked the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) to accept the monthly electricity bills in dollars from companies earning in dollars, Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka Chairman Janaka Ratnayake said.
Ratnayake said the CEB has sought PUCSL approval for an 82 percent increase in tariffs for 2022 under Section 30 of the Sri Lanka Electricity Act No. 20 of 2009. However, the PUCSL is of the view that the tariff increase should not exceed 57% as a concession to the majority of household electricity consumers, he said. “There are 3.14 million of household electricity consumers using less than 60 units per month. It accounts for about 50% of the total household electricity consumers. Therefore, the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka has recommended to the Government to provide a subsidy of Rs.65 billion to that category of consumers. By providing this subsidy, the Ceylon Electricity Board will be able to avoid a large increase in tariffs for the category consuming less than 60 units per month. According to the CEB proposal, the average monthly electricity bill for the category consuming less than 30 units will be increased to Rs.507.The average monthly bill for those who consumers more than 30 units and less than 60 units, will increase to Rs.1,488.As a result of this subsidy, instead of such a tariff increase, the average monthly electricity bill for consumers below 30 units can be maintained at Rs. 227 and the average monthly electricity bill for consumers more than 30 units less than 60 units can be maintained at Rs.658. The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) points out that although a 138 percent tariff increase has been proposed for the entire domestic sector, it should not exceed 67 percent. The CEB also has proposed to increase electricity tariffs by 45 percent for general purpose consumers, 61 percent for industrial consumers, 43 percent for hotels, 43 percent for government agencies and 189 percent for places of worship,”
The CEB targets to increase the average price of a unit of electricity by 82% from Rs.18.14 to Rs.32.48, according to the proposed tariff revision. Ratnayake said the Electricity Board is targeting an annual revenue of Rs.512 billion through this tariff revision. However, the recommendation of the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka is that the price of an average unit of electricity should not exceed Rs. 28.14. We also recommend that the Ceylon Electricity Board should reduce their operating costs by 10 percent by increasing its efficiency and use that savings to get more renewable energy for the system.”
In addition, the PUCSL has observed that the conditions imposed on the Ceylon Electricity Board with the revision of tariffs in 2014 have not yet been fulfilled. Those conditions were the implementation of a proper agreements to generate and supply electricity from power plants owned by the Ceylon Electricity Board, Implementation of a proper agreement method for electricity transactions between the Transmission and Distribution Divisions of the CEB, Introduction of a proper system for keeping separate accounts for the financial activities of the various divisions of the CEB and determining the subsidy requirement and Introduction of an independent audit system for the process of purchasing electricity.
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