CEB headed for sharp tariff revision, dates yet undecided

by Ifham Nizam

The CEB is headed for a sharp tariff revision nine years after it last raised power prices with the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCL) permitting increases of between 23.3 and 23.5% of existing rates, the board’s Additional General Manager Senajith Dissanayake confirmed on Friday.

Senior CEB officials said that despite power cuts and load shedding that had gained momentum during the past few days, and several appeals to economize on electricity usage, there was little or no public co-operation.

Dissanayake said that 2.3 million of the country’s 6.7 million electricity consumers pay monthly bills of less that Rs. 150.

Besides, places of religious worship, industries, hotels etc. enjoy heavily subsidized rates and a revision is imperative.

Currently, domestic tariffs are calculated on a sliding scale with small consumers charged Rs. 7.85 per unit on the first 62 units consumed, Rs. 10 on the next 31 units and rising thereafter.

Higher consumers on the upper slabs pay more depending on consumption going up to Rs. 45 a unit for consumption between 187 and 555 units. The rates keep rising alongside rising consumption.

Dissanayake also claimed that transmission loss here of eight percent is better than what prevails in countries like the U.S. and Japan.

There’s no word yet on when the higher tariff will be implemented.

Consumers were exhorted to economize on the use of heating (cookers, smoothing irons) and cooling devices like air-conditioners.

“If we don’t get rain in March, we’ll be compelled to extend power cuts to over eight hours a day,” Dissanayake said.

Water levels in the reservoirs used for generating hydro-power was down 40% and generation of hydro-electricity limited to 750 MW a day as irrigation water supplies must also be maintained.

Many of the thermal power plants are off the system due to non-availability of fuel, he said. This cost the national grid 574 MW per day.