ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) Thursday approved negative adjustment of Rs 4.88 per unit in KE tariff and positive adjustment of paisa 20 per unit in Discos tariff for the August 2022 under monthly Fuel Charges Adjustment (FCA) mechanism.
The Authority comprising Nepra Chairman Tauseef H Farooqi, Member Sindh, Rafique Ahmad Shaikh and Maqsood Anwar Khan officiated both hearings separately. During the hearing on FCA adjustment in FCA of KE the power utility proposed a negative adjustment of Rs 4.467 per unit to refund Rs 7.656 billion to its consumers for August 2022 under FCA mechanism. The main reason for the discount of Rs 4.467 per unit was reduction in mix variance of Rs 2.914 billion, Rs 5.185 billion price variance and positive adjustment of Rs 883 million in Economic Merit Order.
The Authority, however, approved a reduction of Rs 4.88 per unit in FCA for August 2022, after adjustment of Rs 0.256/kWh as difference due to cost, and Rs 0.408/kWh adjustment proposed by Monitoring & Enforcement (M&E) due to underutilization of efficient sources amounting to Rs 32 million and previous adjustment of Rs 668 million. The Authority approved a refund of Rs 6.83 billion for the consumers of KE.
During the hearing, reasons of fault in first unit of RLNG-fired power plant at Port Qasim KE official stated that team of M/s Siemens is working on the unit to sort out the fault which will take a couple of months. However, second unit of plant has been synchronised which is generating 40 MW during testing. Chairman Nepra further noted that he has personally undertook visits to the plant to find out the reasons for the fault.
The KE team also shared its plan to add more cheap electricity in its system so that price of electricity may be reduced.
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Consumer representatives from Karachi, Aneel Mumtaz, Tanveer Barry, Usman Ali, etc, raised questions about RLNG, load shedding in the city and addition of cheap electricity.
Tanveer Barry, Chairman Power & Gas Sub Committee KCCI observed that after a long time Karachiites have seen a negative impact @ Rs 4.211/unit for August 2022 but consumers can get more benefits if inefficient/expensive power plants of KE are shut down and a shift is made to renewables. KE is generating expensive electricity @ Rs 37.676/unit and purchasing @ Rs 14.032/unit federal government. He proposed that the government should supply 2000 MW to KE instead of 1100 MW from national grid.
The Authority approved an increase of Rs 0.20/kWh in FCA of Distribution Companies (Discos) for the month of August 2022 to recover additional amount of Rs 1.9 billion from consumers. The CPPA-G had sought positive adjustment of Rs 0.22 per unit.
Member Sindh, Rafique Ahmad Shaikh, observed that directions of Authority with respect to ECO are not being honoured by the CPPA-G. However, the CEO CPPA-G clarified that a committee seeing ECO list has a different viewpoint due to which position of those plants which are getting gas from Sui companies has not been altered.
His comments angered the Member Sindh who queried as to how an entity can disobey the orders of the Authority.
The representative of NPCC challenged the way the Authority is deducting money under different accounts, saying that the System Operator has to run the system in the light of available resources.
The representative of National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) also raised objections on deductions for the fault, which his organisation has not committed. Chairman Nepra assured him that the Authority would look into it.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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