Commerce Commission announces changes in FEA tariffs

Effective immediately the Fiji Electricity Authority tariffs will increase for high end consumers and commercial and industrial entities while low end consumers will pay less for electricity.

The Commerce Commission announced in the last hour that low end consumers who use less than 130 kilowatts of power per month will pay 17 cents per unit which is a decrease of 16.4 percent. This means that for a household with a FEA bill of $30 per month will now have to pay $25.08 cents per month.

For high end consumers who use more than 130 kilowatts per month will pay 34.84 cents per unit from the previous 25.5 cents per unit.

Commercial and industrial tariffs increase by 2.2 cents to 11 cents per unit depending on the consumption rate.

For commercial and industrial entities which consume less than 14,999 kilowatts per month will pay 37.47 per unit from the previous 28.65 cents per unit while those who use more than 15,000 kilowatts per month will pay 39.47 cents per unit from the previous 27.67 cents per unit.

Commerce Commission Chairman Dr. Mahendra Reddy stressed that municipal council will now have to be more responsible as they will have to pay the same tariff as the high end domestic consumers while the tariffs for institutions and other specified organisation remains unchanged.

The Commission has also decided that the amount the FEA pays to Independent Power Producers or IPP's will increase from 14.2 cents to 23 cents per unit.

Dr. Reddy stressed that this is a tariff aligned to reflect the cost of generating electricity and it is not a fuel surcharge.

Dr. Reddy said they have based this decision after looking through the submissions from the FEA on the cost of generating electricity.