Mongolia’s electricity consumption has increased significantly after the government wrote off electricity payment for households and organisations across the country.

The power grid of Mongolia  saw a maximum load of 1,300 megawatts (MW) on Monday evening, A.Tleikhan, chairman of the Energy Regulatory Commission, said.

“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 difficulties 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 organisations across the country from 1 December to 1 July, 2021. Governmental organisations, 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 should benefit from the policy.

Around 80 percent of the electrical supply is produced domestically and 20 percent is imported.