Use more, pay more

In an attempt to reduce outages in coming months and ease the pressure on the country's power plants, which have been squeezed between surging coal prices and market demand, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced on Wednesday that electricity prices for nonresidential users and the on-grid tariff paid to power producers will be raised starting from Thursday.

Residential users will not be affected by the latest price hikes. However, the commission said it plans to implement a three-tier residential pricing mechanism that will make those who consume more pay more.

The new three-tier mechanism means the 5 percent of residential users who consume the most electricity will be charged the highest price, while for 80 percent of residential users the price will remain the same.