Islamabad-K-Electric (KE) has submitted an investment plan envisaging an investment Rs484.079 billion in its transmission and distribution system, in next seven years (2023-30), to National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA). Regarding generation investment, the company said that based on existing plans, KE plans to procure power from external sources, including IPPs with equity stake, and doesn’t plan to add any Generating Plant in its existing meet.
However, with any change in planning in future, any power plant is planned to be added in KE’s existing generation fleet, then RE would separately request for the tariff of that power plant for authority’s approval alongwith a separate tariff table for that plant, with the same modalities, said the company in a separate petition.
KE has submitted seven years investment plan and losses assessment for tariff control period to NEPRA. The regulator will hold public hearing on the plan on February 21, 2023.
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As per the plan, the company envisaged an investment of Rs280.915 billion in the projects for expansion/improvement of transmission system. For growth, an investment of Rs140.751 billion; for system, improvement/reliability Rs84.133 billion; NTDC and IPPs interconnection, Rs52.860 billion; and reactive power management and loss reduction, an investment of Rs3.171 billion have been proposed.
Regarding improvement/expansion of distribution system, the company plans to invest Rs184.650 billion within next seven years. The loss reduction component of the distribution projects will cost Rs64.662 billion followed by Rs40.496 billion for maintenance, Rs37.105 billion for growth, Rs25.858 billion for safety and Rs16.529 billion for technology (AMR, ADMS, MDMS, etc).
The company also envisaged an investment of Rs18.514 billion in other functional improvement plan included IT, Cyber Security and others.
Meanwhile, KE in a statement said that K-Electric has filed tariff petition for its power generation plants with the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) for the period commencing from July 01, 2023, till their remaining licensed useful lives. The petition has been admitted by the Regulatory Authority for KE’s generation segment comprises of six thermal based power plants.
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Through this petition, KE has proposed a tariff for remaining life of generation plants with structure in line with IPPs where expenditures are allowed through fixed and variable O&M. This will help to have visibility and align the tariff structure with CTBCM requirement and industry practice.
Currently, the regulator has issued a notice for stakeholders’ comments on KE’s generation tariff petition, and it is expected to conduct a hearing after which the regulator will issue its determination.
Since privatisation, KE has invested over Rs400 billion across its value chain including Rs203.9 billion in generation segment. With the help of targeted investments, KE was able to greatly improve reliability, availability, and capacity of its generation fleet. As a result, KE’s generation fleet efficiency has increased from 30 percent in 2005 to nearly 44 percent. Since FY 2016, KE’s generation fleet reliability has increased from 96 percent to 99.5 percent, whereas, fleet availability has increased from 81 percent to 91 percent, generation capacity increased from 1,875MW to 2,817MW including addition of 900MW BQPS-III.
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The Nation, 13 Feb, 2023