ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has sought power generation plan from Power Division due to projections of massive reduction in hydel after NPCC (National Power Control Centre) forecast ‘not a good summer’.
These directions were issued during a public hearing on Discos Fuel Charges Adjustment (FCA) for the month of February 2025. The CPPA-G has sought negative adjustment of Paisa 30 per unit the all categories of consumers.
However, since FCA was negative by Rs 2.124 per unit for January 2025 and passed on the consumers in bills of March 2025, which will be replaced with negative adjustment of Rs. 0.30 per unit, implying that consumers tariff will increase by Rs1.83 per unit for April 2025.
Water, snow shortage: NPCC warns of lower hydel generation
Nepra Chairman Chaudhry Waseem Mukhtar issued advice to Power Division to conduct a study on reasons of negative growth in demand so that a clear picture may be available to the stakeholders.
On additional financial burden of Rs 1.98 billion on consumers due to violation of Economic Merit Order (EMO), Chairman Nepra stated that Power Division should look into the reasons behind operation of power plants in violation of EMO and resolve it speedily so that Regulator’s continuous concern on the issue is eased.
Citing official and media reports about drought like situation in the country, he advised Power Division to prepare mitigation plan immediately so that consumers are protected.
Chairman Nepra grilled NTDC for failing to honour its commitment of completing the Lahore North Transmission Line in April 2025 as new revised date of June 30, 2025 has conveyed. The SCADA-III has also been shifted from June 2025 to October 2025.
“My energy level is already down due to Ramazan and I don’t want to reduce it further by saying more on it. Convey our serious concerns to the NTDC Board as we are tired of sending letters,” said Chairman NEPRA.
The NPCC noted that electricity supply decreased by 6.6 per cent in February 2025 with respect to reference whereas a 3.3 per cent reduction was witnessed in on Y-Y basis; 3.2 per cent cumulative decrease was witnessed in energy generation during the current fiscal year.
However, representative of CPPA-G stated that sale of electricity declined by 5 per cent in February 2025 against the reference sale whereas reduction of 3.3 per cent was recorded on year on year basis.
In reply to a question, General Manager, NPCC said that a plan is underway regarding electricity generation from hydel which will be submitted to the Authority soon.
Member (Tech) Rafique Ahmad Shaikh explained the logic behind the use of collective wisdom is to reach an informed conclusion in cases of tariff determinations of companies.
Aamir Sheikh, an industrial consumer, said that the industry has anxiously been awaiting the promised decrease in tariff but it has yet to come. Instead tariff for February is being increased by 1.82/unit as compared to January under the guise of lower FPA.
This is a shock to industry and it seems that tariff will increase even more in March. This could have been avoided if the delayed QTA decision had been announced which is around Rs 2 per unit decrease.“ In a previous Nepra hearing industry had requested the QTA to be announced from February so tariff would not have to be increased in February.
However, for reasons not clear this decision is being delayed by Nepra. Industry demands that the QTA decision be immediately announced with effect from 1st March 2025 so that there is no increase in tariff in at least March.
At least 5 to 10 more textile mills have closed during the last 30 days due to the delay in decrease in tariff which has rendered more than 25,000 more workers jobless.
The QTA decision must be announced from March 1, 2025. Furthermore, more and more power is being supplied to KE due to which cost of fuel is increasing for DISCOs (plants lower on merit order have to be run).
The KE is not running their more expensive plants and consumers are getting FPA relief of almost Rs 5/unit whereas LESCO’s consumer relief has reduced to almost zero. In this way industries in Punjab are to cross subsidized KE consumers.
Another consumer Arif Bilwani said current FCA (Feb. 25) is paltry and if seen in the background of the looming catastrophe of extreme water shortage/scarcity (about 65%) already announced by IRSA, dams are empty, culminating in substantial reduction in power production (nil unit cost) will necessitate power production from imported coal and RLNG which will have a huge positive impact on FCA of March and onwards as demand will also increase.
He questioned the planned strategy by the PD, Nepra, CPPA, NTDC etc. to keep it at a bare minimum.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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