Power tariff comes down marginally
The decision came in a public hearing conducted here on Wednesday with Nepra Acting Chairman Ghyasuddin in the chair.
The tariff revision will not apply to consumers of the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) – a private entity which applies separately for tariff changes – and lifeline consumers, who consume up to 50 units per month.
According to officials of the Ministry of Water and Power, electricity tariff has gone up by a whopping 325% in the last four years.
At the hearing of its petition filed with Nepra – the power sector’s regulator, the Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) said it collected net revenues of Rs59.645 billion on sale of 6.650 billion electricity units compared to the cost of Rs60.064 billion. Reference fuel price was projected at Rs6.69 per unit, but actual fuel cost stood at Rs6.64 per unit, a decrease of five paisa per unit.
Keeping this in view, the CPPA sought a tariff reduction of Rs0.0463 per unit for fuel price adjustment for August.
CPPA said electricity worth Rs973 million was wasted in August due to higher transmission and distribution (T&D) losses – a term used to reflect power theft and wastage.
Expressing serious reservations about the constant increase in T&D losses, Nepra Member Licensing Shoukat Ali Kundi and Member Tariff Khawaja Naeem asked CPPA and power distribution companies to bring down the losses.
They noted that some plants were not generating power, but these were being provided 50 megawatts as a standby arrangement. “Consumers are facing the burden of this power supply, which is not fair,” they remarked.
According to CPPA, the cost of power generated through diesel was Rs19.15 per unit, furnace oil-based plants produced electricity at Rs15.59 per unit, gas-based plants at Rs5 per unit, coal-run plants at Rs3.73 per unit and hydel resources at Rs0.08 per unit.
The share of hydropower in total electricity production was 39% compared to 30% for furnace oil-based plants and 23% for gas-fired plants.
In August, Pakistan imported 37.63 million units of electricity from Iran for Rs357.47 million, costing Rs9.5 per unit.
CPPA pointed out that the cost of thermal power generation had decreased automatically following a decline in prices of furnace oil in the international market. In August, power generation through other sources, including hydropower, stood low and this caused an increase in electricity production through imported fuel.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 4th, 2012.
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Ban diesel power generation!