ISLAMABAD-National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) on Thursday allowed the ex-WAPDA power distribution companies (XWDiscos) to refund Rs2.32 per unit to the electricity consumers on account of monthly fuel charges adjustments (FCA) for December 2022.
“It is hereby clarified that negative adjustment on account of monthly FCA is also applicable to the domestic consumers having Time of Use (ToU) meters irrespective of their consumption level,” said the NEPRA notification issued here. In its decision issued here, NEPRA has asked XWDiscos to refund Rs2.3166 to the electricity consumers in their February 2023 bills. NEPRA notified the decision, which shall be applicable to all the consumer categories except lifeline consumers, domestic consumers using up to 300 units, agriculture consumers and Electric Vehicle Charging Stations (EVCS) consumers of all the power distribution companies (DISCOs) except the consumers of K-Electric.
Pakistan condemns raids on BBC offices in India
In its petition submitted to NEPRA, the Central Power Purchasing Agency(CPPA-G) had claimed that actual fuel charges component for December 2022 was Rs7.0027/unit while the corresponding Reference fuel charges component were fixed at Rs9.3193/unit. CPPA, in its application on behalf of DISCOs, requested Rs 2.20/unit reduction in the power tariff under the head of FCA for December 2022. It was observed that during December 2022, the system operator had curtailed the drawl of energy from Thar energy projects i.e. Thar Energy Limited and Engro Power Thar Limited during certain hours, which resulted in out of merit generation from expensive/inefficient power plants. NEPRA observed that curtailment of economical Thar energy projects led to a financial impact of Rs.587.86 million. Accordingly, the amount of Rs.587.86 million has been withheld from the claim of CPPA-G for the month of December 2022.
Petitioner in its request has also included 9.9 GWh at the price of Rs.19.32/unit or the net metering units procured during December 2022. The Authority has considered this amount as part of the FCA for the month of December 2022, said the decision. In its additional note, NEPRA has said that the three most efficient RLNG power plants in Pakistan power sector are the Quaide-Azam Thermal Power Plant (QATPL), two power plants of National Power Parks Management Company Limited at Haveli Bahadur Shah (HBS) and Baloki with the efficiency of more than 61%. However, the utilization factors of these three most efficient RLNG power plants were; QATPL around (13.86%), HBS around (80.88%) and Baloki around (26.61%) during the month of December, 2022. It is noted that the accumulated claim by these power plants against part load operation during the above month is Rs. 1.561 billion. The full utilization of these power plants could minimize the loadshedding on one hand while on the other hand it could help avoid part load charges of Rs 1.561 billion. As per the data submitted by NPCC, the average RLNG allocated to power sector during the month of December, 2022 was 242 MMCFD against a demand of 400 MMCFD which resulted in indicative financial impact of Rs. 77.84 million during the aforesaid month. Efforts should be made to improve the supply chain of RLNG to fully utilize the most efficient RLNG power plants and avoid the part load adjustment charges.
FM embarking on five-day official visit to Germany from today
Similarly, the utilization factor of power plants at Central Power Generation Company Limited (CPGCL), including the newly commissioned Guddu 747 machine, remained very low despite availability of dedicated cheaper gas. Forced outage of unit 16 (249 MW) of Guddu 747 and Guddu old units i.e. 10, 11, 12 & 13 (580 MW) resulted in financial losses due to operation of costlier power plants. It is estimated that a financial impact of around Rs. 5,224 million occurred due to the non-utilization of indigenous gas and operation of expensive units.