ISLAMABAD - The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Tuesday turned down the petition of Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) to increase power tariff by Rs 0.44 and instead decreased tariff by Rs 1.86 per unit on account of fuel adjustment for month of March 2018.
In a public hearing on a petition filed by CPPA-G, the Nepra decided that a relief of Rs1.86 per unit shall be passed on to consumers for the month of March.
In a petition filed with power regulator, the CPPA had filed a petition requesting an increase of Rs 0.4437 per unit in power tariff.
However, Nepra turned down the plea and decided to cut power tariff by Rs1.86 per unit based weighted average reference fuel cost of financial year 2014-15.
The CPPA had requested to make previous adjustment of Rs 6.29 billion or Rs 0.71 per unit on account of supplemental charges. However, the regulator turned down this request and decided to pass on relief of Rs 1.86 per unit to the consumers.
Following reduction in power tariff, the consumers will enjoy a relief of over Rs 15 billion which will be provided in the bills of May.
This adjustment/relief adjustment will be available to domestic consumers in the entire Pakistan except for K-Electric and the lifeline consumers.
The reason for not providing relief to the consumers of K-Electric was that it was a privatized company and distributing its own generated electricity to the consumers in Karachi and is not covered under this determination. The relief will also not be available to the lifeline consumers consuming up to 300 units per month, as they were already being provided subsidized electricity.
The relief will also not be passed on to the industrial consumers who were already getting cheaper electricity.
The CPPA-G filed a petition before the power regulator for a tariff increase on behalf of ex-Wapda distribution companies. In its petition, the CPPA-G reported that it had charged consumers a reference tariff of Rs6.6429 per unit in March against the actual fuel cost of Rs7.0866 per unit requesting an increase of Rs 0.44 per unit.
This working was based on tariff for financial year 2015-16.According to the CPPA-G, about 8740.90 GWh were generated in March and 8468.84 GWh delivered to distribution companies due to higher losses of 2.97percent (Rs0.22 per unit) transmission and distribution losses.
It said the share of hydropower production in the overall energy mix in March dropped to 9.98 per cent as water levels in dams touched dead level. Wind and solar plants together contributed about 1.71 percent and 0.81 percent energy respectively at no fuel cost.
The power generation from furnace oil-based power plants was 16.14 per cent at a cost of Rs10.83 per unit. Similarly, the natural gas-based generation was 21.28 percent at a cost of Rs4.75per unit.
The generation from imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) also contributed 24.32 percent to the overall power supply at a rate of Rs 8.85 per unit.
The overall energy contribution from coal was 14.46 percent and its fuel cost of generation stood at Rs6.88 per unit.
The share of imported electricity from Iran contributed around 0.48 per cent with a cost of Rs11.05 per unit.