National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) Tuesday approved an increase of 55 paisa per unit in electricity prices for Distribution Companies (Discos) for April 2019 under the monthly fuel price adjustment mechanism. The regulator took the decision at a public hearing presided over by Vice Chairman Rehmatullah Baloch with assistance from Saif Ullah Chatha, (member Punjab) and Rafique Ahmed Shaikh (member Sindh). With this increase, an additional burden of Rs 5.20 billion will be put on the consumers across Pakistan except KE consumers.
Nepra has also allowed previous adjustments of Rs 2.005 billion to Central Power Purchasing Agency- Guaranteed (CPPA-G) against proposed amount of Rs 2.165 billion. CPPA-G had claimed previous adjustment of Rs 1.79 million with respect to Kapco, Rs 1.21457 billion for NPGCL, Rs 429.61 million for Chashma III, Rs 77.10 million for QATPL, Rs 27.46 million for Baloki and Rs 414.63 supplemental charges. Nepra's technical team reduced proposed amount of Rs 159.74 million with respect to NPGCL.
The representative of NPCC informed Nepra that RFO based electricity was just five percent of total generation in April. He further stated surplus RLNG is available for power but demand has decreased in some areas due to weather conditions. He said, in April 2019 RLNG requirement was worked out at 850 MMCFD but its consumption stood at 700 MMCFD.
The Authority was further informed that RLNG-fired Balloki Power Plant was facing forced outages of over 300 hours in April. One of the Nepra officials stated that the plant ran only 35 per cent in April. This issue was also raised by one of the interveners' Akhtar Ali. Nepra directed NPCC to present a detailed report on Balloki power plant.
According to the CPPA-G, 22.94 percent electricity was produced from hydel resources in April, 10.34 percent from coal, 18.24 percent from local gas, 30.83 percent from imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) and 7.67 percent from atomic sources.