Bhutan government revised electricity tariffs

Bhutan government revised its subsidy on electricity tariff. The current electricity tariff of Bhutan Power Corp. expired on June 30, 2010. The new tariffs came into effect from August 1, 2010 and will be revised after every three years.

In order to ensure efficient use of power and generate revenue for other socio-economic activities, the government revised power tariffs.

Khandu Wangchuk, Economic Affairs Minister, Bhutan, said that the cabinet considered many aspects such as affordability, price stability etc. before revising the tariff rates.

Under the revised subsidy plan, the cabinet decided to provide 81 percent subsidy to lower voltage consumers from its royalty energy volume of 1,028.268 GWh earned from the Druk Green Power Corporation.

The LV block I subsidy has been increased to 0 to 100kWh from 0 to 80 kWh. An LV block I consumer will pay Nu0.85 for one kWh for the next three years from Nu 0.75 kWh. The price of one kWh has been fixed at Nu 4.21 by Bhutan Power Corp. and out of this, government will pay Nu 3.36 for every unit of energy consumed by village households.

The subsidy of LV block II has been increased from 81 to 300 units to 101 to 300 units. For per kWh, an LV block II consumer will have to pay Nu 1.47 per kWh.

For LV block III users (300 kWh and above) the tariff has been fixed to Nu 1.94 per kWh. For medium voltage (MV) consumers, the tariff has been increased to Nu 96.63 per kWh which also includes demand charges.

The higher voltage (HV) consumers will pay the existing Nu 86.51 per kWh till June 2011 after which it will be increased to Nu 1.54 per kWh from Nu 1.51.