ISLAMABAD - The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) on Tuesday issued final warning to the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) to desist from its practice of rounding bills to the highest figure.
Failure to do so would lead to strict action being taken against KESC.
This warning was given by Chairman NEPRA Khalid Saeed while presiding over a three member bench that heard KESC’s petition on the monthly fuel adjustment and quarterly tariff petition. The bench allowed KESC Rs0.32 per unit increase in tariff under the monthly fuel adjustment while the decision on the quarterly tariff was reserved.
NEPRA had earlier sought reply from KESC on public complaints that the entity was rounding bills to the highest number instead of the nearest. The company was rounding Rs52 bill to Rs100. Chairman NEPRA said that if any complaints were received in the future, penal action would be taken against the company.
KESC was also directed to refrain from average billing as conditions have improved in Karachi and by conducting actual meter reading relief should be provided to the consumers.
The meeting was informed that the government had provided Rs44 billion under the power differential subsidy during the last fiscal year while another Rs17 billion was yet to be received. KESC said their generation on furnace oil was on the rise for the last three years, as they were getting 282 mmcfd in 2009 which was reduced to 215 mmcfd in 2010 and now they were getting 167 mmcfd in 2011. NEPRA’s member Sindh Maqbool Ahmad Khawaja asked the company to sign fuel supply agreement with the government to avoid such scenarios in future.
The meeting was informed that a 560 MW new dual fired power plant of KESC would start functioning by first quarter next year. When asked about the efficiency of the plant, the company representatives claimed it would have highest efficiency of 48 per cent. However, Chairman NEPRA observed that four IPPs including Sapphire, Saif and Halmore have approved 51 percent efficiency.
KESC representatives contested his statement and said practically no plant could operate on 51 per cent efficiency. Khalid Saeed explained that the IPPs had bought the most modern plants five years back. “It is simply not possible for an investor to get 51 percent efficiency for his plant approved from NEPRA and then run it on 44 per cent efficiency”. During the hearing KESC complained that the monthly fuel adjustments approved by NEPRA were not notified by the Ministry of Law and the last three decisions were still to be implemented. Chairman NEPRA said that the matter would be resolved within a month after parliament approves the bill for automatic fuel adjustment. A representative of the government of Sindh, Riaz Ali Shaikh severely criticised the performance of the KESC and said its 5000 feeders tripped after the start of rainfall in Karachi. However KESC representatives rebutted his claims and said the company has only 1200 feeders and only a few tripped.
Energy Production in Pakistan: Amongst the largest oil and gas companies are the Oil and Gas Development Corporation Limited and Pakistan Petroleum Limited. Coal currently plays a minor role in the country’s energy mix, though the country has an estimated 3,362 million short tons of reserves. Pakistan currently has two nuclear power plants, Chashma-1, which has a capacity to produce 300 megawatts of electricity. The second nuclear power plant, Chashma-2 recently inaugurated by the Prime Minister, has a capacity to produce 330 MW of electricity. Electric power in Pakistan comes from a variety of sources; thermal, hydro-electricity and nuclear. The two main companies generating electricity in Pakistan are the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and the Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation (KESC). WAPDA supplies electric power to all of Pakistan except for Karachi, which is supplied by KESC. More than two-thirds of the electricity generated comes from thermal stations powered by oil, natural gas and coal. In recent years, an increase in thermal power generation has come from new independent power producers (IPPs), some of which have been funded by foreign investors. KESC