ENTERPRISES SELLING ELECTRICITY ARE ALLOWED TO ASK THE BUYERS FOR RESIDENTIAL INFORMATION AT THE ELECTRICITY USE LOCATION

On April 21, 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam issued Circular No 09/2023/TT-BCT (“Circular 09”) amending some articles of two circulars on electricity prices including Circular No 16/2014/TT-BCT (“Circular  16”) and Circular No 25/2018/TT-BTC amending to some articles of Circular No 16/2014/TT-BCT (“Circular 25”).

In accordance with the Law on Residence on the invalidation of household registration books and temporary residence books, Circular 09 amends regulations related to the use of household registration books as a basis for determining the retail price of electricity has been specified in Circular 16 and Circular 25, specifically as follows:

Providing information at the request of the electricity seller

According to Circular 09, in the case of domestic electricity retailers and the electricity sellers who need information about the residence of students and tenants to determine the electricity bill calculation normnorm, the electricity seller is allowed to request the electricity buyer to provide information about residence at the electricity consumption location as a basis for the determination.

Addition of definition on Residence information: accordingly, Residence information refers to information defined by the Law on Residence and legal documents guiding its implementation.

The following information will be identified under “Residence Information” including:

1. Information about households sharing an electric meter;
2. Information of people living in collective houses of officers, public employees, armed forces, houses of monks, dormitories of students that use electricity for domestic purposes, make a declaration to be counted as one electricity-consuming household in order to apply the retail price of domestic electricity;
3. Information about the tenant's residence;
4. Information on the number of households, the number of households increasing or decreasing in rural electricity wholesale, electricity wholesale in collective areas and residential clusters; wholesale electricity for commercial - service - living complexes;
5. Information about students and tenants (other than a household) who have a tenancy agreement with the lessor, for the purpose of identifying the person authorized to enter into domestic electricity purchase agreement with the electricity seller.

Circular 09 takes effect from June 15, 2023.