“The electricity bill is higher than the monthly rent. Is this true?” A self-employed person sighs

With the number of heat wave days this year ranking안전놀이터 third on record, small business owners are sighing deeply due to rapidly rising electricity bills. As electricity usage in August is expected to rise to the highest level of any summer on record, the burden of electricity bills for small business owners is expected to increase further.

On the 4th, on ‘I’m the Boss Because I’m Sick’, an online community for self-employed people, many posts were posted complaining about expensive electricity bills. A self-employed person who runs a snack bar said, “The monthly rent is 720,000 won, but the electricity bill for a 17-pyeong snack bar is more than the monthly rent,” and said that the electricity bill for August was 778,000 won.

Another self-employed person also complained, “(Electricity bills) are about double compared to last year. I wonder if this is true,” and “I’m going crazy when I call and they say there’s nothing wrong with the bills.” Another self-employed person also commented, “We also used 30% less electricity than last year, but the bill went up 30%,” and “So I turned on the fan.”

Another self-employed person who runs a PC room said, “The electricity bill was 3.4 million won in July, but this month it was 7.5 million won. “It’s just the electricity bill,” he said. “The electricity bill has never been like this during this time.” I thought it would be more because the weather was hot in August, but I never thought it would be 2.8 times more. “The damage is too great,” he said. Meanwhile, according to the power industry, the electricity transaction volume in August was tentatively calculated to be

about 51,000 gigawatt hours ( GWh ), the highest ever in the summer. According to the Korea Meteorological Administration, the number of heat wave days this year was 19, ranking third after the worst heat waves of all time in 2018 (35 days) and 2016 (24 days), and power use increased rapidly due to the heat wave. It is presumed that the increased electricity usage was greater in household and commercial facilities than in industrial use. In addition, electricity rates have been increased by 28.5 won per kilowatt hour ( kWh ) three times since last summer, which is expected to increase the burden on small business owners.