ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has slashed the Discos tariff by 32 paisa per unit for October 2022 under the monthly Fuel Charges Adjustment (FCA) mechanism.
The Central Power Purchasing Agency-Guaranteed (CPPA-G) had sought an increase of 25 paisa per unit in FCA for October but on November 29, 2022, the Nepra after hearing the concerned authorities and having gone through data, decided to approve a negative adjustment.
The negative adjustment shall be applicable to all the consumer categories except lifeline consumers, domestic consumers consuming upto 300 units, Electric Vehicle Charging Stations (EVCS) and Agriculture Consumers of all the Discos.
The negative adjustment on account of monthly FCA is also applicable to the domestic consumers having Time of Use (ToU) meters irrespective of their consumption level.
The revised FCA shall be shown separately in the consumers’ bills on the basis of units billed to the consumers in the month of October 2022.
Effective Nov 2022: Agri consumers of Discos, KE have to pay Rs23.30/unit
Discos shall reflect the FCA in respect of October 2022 in the billing month of December 2022.
Member Nepra (Sindh) Rafique Ahmad Shaikh, in his additional note has made the following observations:
(i) The three most efficient RLNG power plants in Pakistan’s power sector are Ouaid-e-Azam Thermal Power Plant (OATPL), two power plants of National Power Parks Management Company Limited at Haveli Bahadur Shah (HBS) and Baloki; efficiency of these power plants is above 61%. The utilisation factors of these three most efficient RLNG power plants were QATPL around (76.32%), HBS around (27.81%) and Baloki around (73.73%) during the month of October, 2022. It is noted that the accumulated claim by these power plants against part load operation is Rs 3.213 billion. The full utilisation of these power plants could minimize the load shedding on one hand while on the other hand it could help avoid part load charges of Rs 3.213 billion; (ii) as per the data submitted by NPCC, the average RLNG allocated to power sector during the month of October, 2022 was 400 MMCFD against a demand of 715 MMCFD that resulted in indicative financial impact of Rs. 259.81 million during the aforesaid month. Efforts should be made to improve the supply chain of RLNG to fully utilise the most efficient RLNG power plants and avoid the part load adjustment charges; and (iii) utilisation factor of power plants at Central Power Generation Company Limited (CPGCL), including the newly commissioned Guddu 747 machine, remained very low despite availability of dedicated cheaper gas. Forced outage of unit 16 (249 MW) of Guddu 747 and Guddu old units i.e. 10, 11, 12 & 13 (580MW) resulted in financial losses due to operation of costlier power plants.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022