KE’s monthly receivables improve to 96.69%

Power firm says performance got better on back of sustained investments

KARACHI:

K-Electric (KE) reported at its 112th annual general meeting (AGM) on Wednesday that its monthly receivables from sale of electricity to consumers improved by 1.8 percentage points to 96.69% in previous fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2022.

Monthly recoveries, however, decreased by seven percentage points to 90.51% in remaining parts of the country, a KE official said citing National Electric Power Regulatory Authority’s (Nepra) data.

“Efforts to inculcate a culture of regular bill payments and engagement with community representatives have helped improve recovery ratios,” the company said in a statement.

Besides, KE’s transmission and distribution losses contracted by 2.2 percentage points to 15.3% in fiscal year 2022 compared to 17.5% in previous fiscal year.

“This reduction beat the target of 15.95% set by the regulator (Nepra), which is a noteworthy achievement,” it said.

“KE’s operational performance has shown improvement on the back of sustained investments across the value chain.”

Notable improvement in monthly bill recoveries and line losses should now help the integrated power company to reduce the duration of load-shedding.

Earlier, the company adopted a policy of intentional load-shedding of up to seven and a half hours a day in areas where bill recoveries stood low. The company claims over 70% of Karachi is load-shedding-free with 100% exemption given to industries.

The AGM, chaired by CEO Moonis Alvi, noted that over 200,000 new customers had been added to the network, taking customer base to 3.4 million in FY22.

With capacity enhancement initiatives across the value chain, KE was able to dispatch almost 20 billion units (19,800 gigawatthours – GWh) of electricity to homes, offices and industries across Karachi.

However, the improved operational efficiencies were partly offset by the negative impact of additional Rs9.5 billion (expenditure and losses) on account of Mid-Term Review (MTR) decision, increase in impairment loss against doubtful debts, adverse exchange rate variations, and increase in finance cost of the company.