Pakistan's electricity generation cost up 160% YoY in June, production dips

The total cost of generating electricity in the country jumped 160.4%, hitting Rs14.72 KWh in June 2022 compared to Rs5.65 kWh in June last year.

On a YoY basis, the rise in fuel cost was witnessed mainly due to a rise in the cost of generation for coal, Furnace Oil (FO), and Regasified Liquid Natural Gas (RLNG), which went up by 155.5%, 149.2% and 168.3% respectively, according to a note by brokerage house Arif Habib Limited (AHL).

Moreover, the cost of electricity imported from Iran also surged by 72.1% to Rs19.7 KWh in June 2022, in comparison to Rs11.37 KWh recorded in same month last year.

Data on generation mix revealed that electricity generation from hydel, coal and nuclear declined 20.4%, 27.3% and 21.8%, respectively on a yearly basis.

Pakistan's electricity generation cost up 131% YoY

Meanwhile, power generation from RLNG, FO, gas and wind filled the gap, with a yearly increase of 25.5%, 23.8%, 13.5% and 58.9%, respectively.

Power generation from other renewable sources including wind, solar and bagasse made great strides and now accounts for 7% of the entire energy mix in June 2022, as compared to just 4.4% in the same month in 2021.

Meanwhile, power generation went down by 3.4% YoY to 13,876 GWh (19,272 MW) during June 2022, compared to 14,361 GWh (19,946 MW) during June 2021.

“Slowdown in economic activities and prolonged hours of load shedding (i.e., to save expensive fuel cost) were the major factors behind the decline in the power generation,” said Abdullah Umer, an analyst at Ismail Iqbal Securities.

“Along with this, during the month KANUPP-II (i.e., 1,100 MW capacity) also remained unavailable for most of the month due to technical fault,” he added.

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During FY22, power generation increased by 9.34% YoY to 143,193 GWh (16,346 MW), the highest-ever compared with 130,223 GWh (14,866 MW) during FY21.

“Healthy economic activities and industrial support package remained major drivers behind such robust growth in electricity generation during FY22,” said Abdullah.

In June, RLNG was the leading source of power generation, accounting for 24.4% of the generation mix with 3,391 GWh generated in June 2022, as compared to 2,701 GWh generated in the same month last year, an increase of 25.5%.

Power generation from hydel accounted for 24.2% of generation, while coal emerged as the third leading source of generation with 13.6% generation in June 2022.