ISLAMABAD-The caretaker government is all set to allow to transfer the burden of over Rs200 billion to power consumers on account of monthly and quarterly adjustments within next one week time. The CPPA-G has filed a petition with NEPRA for an increase of Rs2.07/unit on account of monthly fuel charges adjustments for the month of July. Another petition of XWDiscos is pending with NEPRA for the recovery of approximately Rs170 billion (QA Rs144.68 billion + 18 percent GST) from power consumers on account of quarterly adjustments. The increase on account of quarterly adjustment will be recoverable within three months.
NEPRA will conduct public hearing on the XWDiscos petition today (August 23), for transfer of an additional approximately Rs170 billion on account of quarterly adjustments to power consumers, while, on August 30, the regulator will hold hearing on the CPPA-G’s petition for the transfer of another around Rs35 billion (Rs29billion FCA + 18 percent GST) to power consumers on account of monthly FCA for July 2023. A petition submitted by the Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) on behalf of XWDiscos said that for the month of July, the reference fuel charges from the consumers were Rs6.8935/unit, while the actual fuel cost was Rs8.9638/unit. Therefore, it should be allowed to pass the increase of Rs2.0703/unit to consumers.
In the data shared with the regulator, the CPPA-G informed that 14,839 GWh of electricity was generated during the month at the cost of Rs123,736 billion (or Rs8.3387/unit) and 14,328 GWh at Rs128,185 billion (or Rs 8.9638/unit) had been delivered to Discos with 2.84 percent as transmission losses. It is worth to mention here that the total generation has increased from 13,715 GWh during the June to 14,839 GWh in July, while the per unit cost has decreased from Rs9.6300/unit to Rs8.3387/unit. According to the data, hydel generation in July increased to 5,518 GWh (or 37.18 percent of the total generation) in July from 4,133 GWh (30.14 percent) during the previous month.
The data further highlighted that that 295 GWh (1.98 percent) of expensive electricity was generated from furnace oil during July. In July, less electricity was generated from RFO, as in June, 744 GWh (5.43 percent) electricity was generated from furnace oil.
However, the cost of the RFO-based electricity in July was Rs28.7270/unit which was higher than Rs26.0943/unit during June. The generation from coal-based power plants decreased by 10.54 percent to 2,180 GWh in July from 2,434 GWh during June. The cost of the coal-based was also decreased to 11.5438 GWh during the month of July from Rs14.0744/unit during June.
Coal was far cheaper source of power generation than all the other fuel based energy, except nuclear, generation including Gas, RLNG, RFO and even Iranian electricity.
The natural gas-based generation declined by 3.66 percent from 1,171 GWH (8.54 percent) in June to 1,129 GWh in July. The cost of the gas-based electricity hiked in July to Rs13.6789/unit from Rs11.7444/unit in June.
The RLNG-based electricity contribution to the national grid increased by almost 17.44 percent in July to 2,918 GWh from 2,544 GWh in June. The cost of RLNG based electricity was slightly up to Rs24.4313/unit from Rs24.0740/unit during the preceding month. Generation from nuclear based power plants raised by 13.46 percent to 2,107 GWh (14.20 percent) in July from 1,857 GWh (13.54 percent) during June. The per unit cost of nuclear power was increased to Rs1.1664/unit in July from Rs1.0721/unit in June. The import of electricity from Iran was 29 GWh at the cost of Rs23.6165/unit. From bagasse, 40 GWh of electricity was generated at Rs5.9822/unit, while wind and solar contributed 549 GWh and 75 GWh, respectively, to the national grid during July.