Ministry of Energy: Price differentiation is the fairest mechanism for calculating electricity use

Price differentiation depending on the volume of electricity consumption is considered as the fairest settlement mechanism, Deputy Minister of Energy Sherzod Khodjayev said.

“We will have differentiated tariffs for the population, and it will consist of three indicators: basic, low and high tariffs. In this case, everything will be fair,” he said.

According to him, the Ministry of Energy has successfully tested this option of payments on legal entities.

“At night, for plants, the tariff is one and a half times lower than the daily rate. As practice shows, the differentiation of tariffs has greatly helped energy-intensive consumers, whose added value is directly tied to the amount of energy consumed. They began to save, and also the average tariff for electricity began to become quite low. We can do the same for the population,” the Deputy Minister said.

In addition, he added that price differentiation by amount of consumption is a global practice, but when it comes to social norms, “neither our consumers, nor some experts have a clear understanding of what it is”.

“In my understanding, the social norm is that we have to give a discount to a certain category of consumers. They do not have to pay 295 soums per kilowatt. They should pay 200 soums. These are those who need protection, but regional electric networks are not able to cover these 95 soums from the budget. So we must introduce a premium for those who consume a lot,” Khodjayev said.

Despite the fact that price differentiation for the population will create difficulties for settlements, it will be “the fairest mechanism in relation to the consumer”, he emphasized.

“There will always be slight disagreements. No system is perfect,” Khodjayev siad.