PURC To Announce New Water, Electricity Tariffs Effective Jan 1,2023
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) will later in this week announce figures approved for water and electricity tariffs for the period 1st January to 31st March 2023.
This is in line with the Commission’s Quarterly Tariff Adjustment (QTA) policy.
PURC adjusts tariffs to reflect changes in macroeconomic variables such as inflation and exchange rate.
The review to be done by the regulatory authority will either see an upward or downward adjustment.
The pending tariff review was announced by the Director of Research and Corporate Affairs of the PURC, Dr. Eric Kofi Obutey on the sidelines of a stakeholder engagement in Accra on Monday, December 19.
Stakeholders present at the meeting included representatives of the Ministry of Energy, the Consumer Protection Agency, and Media personnel.
According to Dr. Obutey, the QTA enables the Commission to reflect changes in macroeconomic variables in the operations of utility service providers. These variables are; the inflation rate, foreign exchange rate, and the cost of natural gas, electricity, and water supply.
The QTA also helps in minimizing the effect of changes on the macroeconomic and market-driven variables, as well as delays associated with passing on such effects to consumers and utility service providers within the tariff control period.
Dr. Obutey could however not say whether the yet-to-be-announced tariff will be lower or higher than the current one.
“We are in the process of computing the figures. When we finish, we will submit it to our Board, which will in turn present it to the government, after which the announcement will be made,” he explained.
He stressed that in arriving at the tariffs, utmost consideration will be given to ensure that utility providers stay in business and consumers do not suffer.
“In all that we are doing, we want to ensure that the utility providers are financially sustainable. We do not want the recurrence of erratic power supply which we refer to in Ghana as ‘dumsor’. We will also ensure that the interest of the consumer is not compromised,” he explained.
Speaking at the same event, the Executive Secretary of the PURC, Dr. Ishmael Ackah disclosed that the Commission will introduce net metering next year.
Net metering is an arrangement where excess generated Renewable Energy is fed into the national grid by contracted customers.
Dr. Ackah explained that “under this system, customer-generators are credited in kWh for electricity supplied to the grid. This will be done in close collaboration with the Energy Commission in the identification of 35 Customer-Generators.”
Earlier this year, the PURC announced a 27.15% increase in tariff for electricity and 21.55% increase in water tariff effective September 1, 2022.