PETALING JAYA: The government is reviewing the electricity tariff structure for next year to ensure a fairer distribution of costs among households and energy-intensive industries, including data centres, Deputy Prime Minister and Energy Transition and Water Transformation Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof told the Dewan Rakyat today.
Fadillah said the Energy Commission (ST) had been tasked with conducting a detailed study of the proposed changes, taking into account electricity consumption, affordability and the need to protect households from rising energy costs.
“We are looking at a new approach for next year to ensure tariffs are more closely aligned with consumption.
“Domestic users are one category, industries another, and those consuming larger amounts of electricity would be treated differently,” he said.
He said the review would also consider applying the “user-pays” principle more closely to major electricity consumers, particularly data centres and energy-intensive industries, to ensure costs were distributed more equitably.
The principle is already part of the existing tariff framework, which requires data centre operators to bear additional grid infrastructure costs. However, Fadillah did not specify what further changes were being considered.
He was responding to Shah Alam MP Azli Yusof, who asked whether electricity bill protections would be extended beyond Dec 31 and whether additional measures would be introduced to shield households from higher charges.
Fadillah said the government remained committed to balancing three priorities: security of electricity supply, affordability and environmental sustainability. It would also ensure that industrial electricity tariffs remained competitive with those in neighbouring countries.
He said the existing protection measures, introduced on Sept 1, exempt households consuming up to 800 kilowatt-hours (kWh) a month from the Automatic Fuel Adjustment (AFA) surcharge, sales and service tax (SST) and retail charges until Dec 31.
The measures benefit about eight million households, representing 90% of domestic electricity consumers in Peninsular Malaysia.
Fadillah attributed recent increases in electricity bills to rising global fuel prices amid the West Asia crisis, prolonged hot weather that had driven up air-conditioning use, and reduced generation capacity at some power plants.
He said these factors would be considered in the review of future tariff arrangements, while the government continued to prioritise a reliable and affordable electricity supply.