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Consumer Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Consumer subsidies are often applied in order to reduce the price of energy to consumers mainly through government controls on the cost of fossil fuels or power.

Reports: How to Pay the Bills? A survey of public attitudes to electricity tariff reform in Rajasthan

Electricity distribution utilities in India are currently unable to cover the cost of their operations from the sale of electricity. This report presents the findings of a household survey that sheds light on the awareness and views of different socioeconomic and geographical groups regarding electricity subsidies and electricity tariff reform. It concludes that there is a significant lack of awareness of the existence and size of electricity subsidies, although subsidy reform is a tough sell. At the same time, surveyed households recognize that higher power prices would have significant negative impacts on their daily activities, and some of them show willingness to pay for a more reliable power supply.

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Reports: Indonesia's Financially Sustainable Electricity Sector

In addition to Indonesia’s objective of increasing the share of renewable energy in their generation mix, the country’s electricity sector is facing a number of challenges, notably the need to meet rising demand for electricity and to serve consumers in geographically remote regions. This report demonstrates that subsidies are still an important part of the state-owned electricity company and that remote areas are not seeing previous improvements in the same way as populated ones are. Also, coal generation is getting the main focus of the capacity-increase programs, despite the important potential of renewable sources.

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Commentary: Winter Approaches: The Real Test for Ukraine's Energy Subsidy Reforms

In the past few weeks and months, Ukrainian media has been peppered with diametrically opposed pieces of analysis and commentary on energy pricing and energy subsidy reform. On one side, the central government, with the support of international donors, as well as Naftogaz, the national gas supplier, is running an information campaign on why energy subsidy reform is a much-needed move for Ukraine. On the other side, there are continued reports of city councils and populist parties' activists protesting against the “unconstitutional” decision of the central government to increase tariffs for gas and electricity according to an accelerated schedule.

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