ULAN BATOR, Dec.15 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia's electricity consumption has increased significantly after the government wrote off electricity payment for households and organizations across the country, a local official said Tuesday.
The power grid of the Asian country saw a maximum load of 1,300 megawatts (MW) on Monday evening, Almalyk Tleikhan, chairman of the Energy Regulatory Commission, said at a press conference.
"This morning, the electricity consumption stood at 1,150 MWs, an increase of more than 100 MWs than usual. If the energy consumption continues to rise in this way, there will be an error in our country's energy sector," Tleikhan said, urging the public to save electricity as much as possible and not to sharply increase power consumption.
On Sunday, the Mongolian government decided to write off payments for water, heat, electricity and waste for households and organizations across the country from Dec. 1 to July 1, 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Governmental organizations, state and local owned entities, mining companies, wholesalers, retailers, and alcohol or tobacco producers are not entitled to the benefit.
More than 890,000 households and 123,800 organizations can benefit from the policy, according to official data.
Around 80 percent of the electrical supply is produced domestically and 20 percent is imported, according to the country's Energy Ministry. Enditem
