China's Latest Electricity Tariff Reform: Lifeline Rates at Last
Article from: OGEL 1 (2011), in China Energy Law and Policy
Introduction
(October 2010) - Some seventeen years after the World Bank recommended them in a report published in 1997, China's government is at last on the point of introducing "lifeline" tariffs. As I explained in my column a few months ago, lifeline tariffs provide a government with the means of raising household electricity tariffs while protecting the poorest members of society. This is achieved through charging a lower, subsidised tariff for a monthly consumption of electricity which lies below a certain threshold. The significance of the announcement by the National Development and ...