Pakistan's power cost and generation declines significantly in Nov

The total cost of generating electricity in the country dropped nearly 34%, hitting Rs5.99 KWh in November 2022 compared to Rs9.02 KWh registered in the month of October.

On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, electricity generation cost declined marginally by 5.3%.

“On a YoY basis, the decrease in fuel cost is witnessed mainly due to a rise in nuclear, and solar-based generation,” said Arif Habib Limited (AHL) in a note on Monday.

“While on a month-on-month MoM basis, the decline in fuel cost was triggered by a decline in coal (-27% MoM, due to the addition of local coal-based plants), Residual Fuel Oil (RFO) (-28% MoM), and Regasified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG) (-16% MoM) based cost of generation,” it added.

On the flip side, despite the decline in cost, power generation in the country went down by 22% on a monthly basis 8,367 GWh (11,621 MW) in November 2022, compared to 10,705 GWh in October. On a yearly basis, electricity generation also registered a drop of 1%, as compared to 8,482 GWh recorded in November 2021.

During 5MFY23, power generation also recorded a drop of 8% YoY to 60,153 GWh (16,382 MW), in comparison to 65,570 GWh (17,856 MW) during 5MFY22.

“Floods, lower industrial demand, and surge in tariff,” lead to the decline, said Fahad Rauf, Head of Research at Ismail Iqbal Securities Limited in a note.

Moreover, cost of power generation during the first five months of the ongoing fiscal year was up 35%, from Rs6.99 in 5MFY22 to Rs9.42 in 5MFY23.

Pakistan's power generation cost up nearly 46% YoY in Sep as production declines

Data on generation mix revealed that electricity generation decline on a monthly basis was led by coal 975 GWh, and RLNG 1,012 GWh, which decreased by 41.1% and 45.1%, respectively.

Moreover, power generation from hydel and gas sources stood at 2,484 GWh and 1,189 GWh respectively, also showing a MoM decline of 21% and 8.3%, respectively, on a monthly basis.

In November, hydel was the leading source of power generation, accounting for 29.7% of the generation mix. Whereas, power generation from nuclear improved significantly, to become the second largest source of electricity generation in the country, with a share of 27.9%, after recording a YoY increase of 57.4% and MoM increase of 6% at 2,338 GWh.

Moreover, electricity generation from wind sources declined by 29% on a monthly basis to 158 GWh, while power generation from other renewable sources such as solar remained stable at 79GWh.