The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) had admitted four applications for the grant of electric supply license from the private sector housing societies.

According to the annual report of the Authority, the housing societies include Lake City Management (Private) Limited (Lahore), Aujla & Associates Town Developers (Private) Limited (Gujranwala), Punjab Industrial Estate Development & Management Company (Sundar-Lahore) and Bahria Town (Private) Limited (Lahore).

The report has highlighted that applications from societies/colonies/industrial estates could not be finalized due to different reasons such as reluctance of the host DISCOs being sub-judice in the court of law. After the amendment in the NEPRA Act, the Authority has decided to further process these applications for which the applicants have been directed to apply for the grant of supplier license under the new regime.

It said the NEPRA Act 1997 has been amended to foster competition in the power sector by removing the exclusive right to provide distribution services in a given service territory. Therefore, the existing distribution licenses are required to be modified to bring consistency with the statutory provisions of the NEPRA (Amendment) Act, 2018, and implement the market reforms introduced there under. In this regard, the Authority proposed modification (APM) proceedings for 13 distribution licensees were initiated.

Keeping in view the current energy security concerns in the country, the NEPRA issued 1,152 generation licenses overall for conventional power plants, renewable energy projects, hydropower projects and net metering during the financial year 2018-l9. The report has further added that tariff was determined for successful bidders, through competitive bidding, of two medium sized hydropower projects to be constructed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The generation tariff was determined for 300MW coal-fired power plant at Gwadar. The existing mechanism of fuel cost component was modified on account of utilization of RLNG for Northern Power Generation Company Limited and Jamshoro Power Company Limited. Determination was issued regarding review against decision in the matter of induction of security cost for CPEC projects in the power tariff to ensure security sustainability. The generation tariff determinations were also issued to 16 companies based on wind power and two companies based on solar power, the report added.