ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has approved Rs 1.56 per unit increase in the power price on account of fuel price adjustment for the month of October 2019.
Following a request of Central Power Purchasing Authority (CPPA) to jack up per unit power price by Rs1.73 per unit on account of fuel price adjustment for the month of October 2019, NEPRA has taken the decision of Rs 1.56/unit hike in the price of electricity. However, this raise in per unit price of electricity will not be applicable on lifeline consumers who use 50 units a month and the consumers of the K-Electric.
NEPRA official said that the actual cost of the generation of per unit of electricity in the month of October 2019 was Rs 5.3235, while reference fuel cost of per unit was earlier set at Rs3.7579 and in this way fuel variation was registered at Rs1.5656/unit during the said month.
Sources in the power sector said that already burdened power consumers will bear the additional cost of approximately Rs14.5 billion with effect to the NEPRA’s approval of Rs 1.56 per unit hike in power price on account of fuel price adjustment of the month of October 2019.
During the course of hearing, CPPA pleaded that furnace-oil-run power plants had produced power in the said period due to the unavailability of gas. The CPPA advocated that power generation with Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) run power plants could not be met also because of the shortage of gas. Also, merit order was not followed due to shortage of gas, said CPPA.
Speaking on the occasion, the NEPRA chairman said that if efforts were used towards the distribution of electricity then problems related to power supply could not surface. However, it is noted that power generation with high speed diesel was not utilized in October, said NEPRA.
CPPA in its application advocated that 25.48pc electricity was produced from hydel sources; 24.62pc was generated from coal; 0.20pc from residual furnace oil; 12.17pc from natural gas; 25.41pc from re-gasified liquefied natural gas (RLNG); 9.23pc from nuclear power; 0.14pc from mixed sources; 0.06pc from bagasse; 0.64 from solar while 0.14pc electricity was imported from Iran to meet the energy needs during the month of October 2019.
As per CPPA, total energy generated in October stood at 9,572.06 gigawatts, while the energy delivered to power distributing companies (DISCOs) was 9,296.60GWh (97.12pc).
Earlier, NEPRA, in a public notice, invited all the interested/affected parties to raise written/oral objections, as permissible under the law, during the course of NEPRA’s public hearing regarding fuel price adjustment.
