Rs4/unit raise in Discos’ tariff approved for April

National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has approved an increase of Rs4 per unit in Discos tariff for April 2022 under monthly Fuel Charges Adjustment (FCA) mechanism to recover an additional Rs51 billion from inflation-hit consumers in bills of June 2022.

The Authority is already under criticism at different forums for deliberately announcing tariff rebasing determinations of Discos at a time when coalition government led PML (N) succeeded PTI led government through a no confidence motion despite the fact that the IMF, World Bank and ADB have expressed their reservations for this delay.

The Authority conducted public hearing May 31, 2022 during which the officials of CPPA-G, National Power Control Centre (NPCC) and National Transmission Despatch

Company (NTDC) were quizzed on different accounts.

NPCC/NTDC during the hearing explained operation of power plants on RFO, however, the Authority observed that an in-house analysis has also been carried out to work out the financial impact due to deviation from EMO based on the information submitted by NPCC.

As per the in-house analysis/workings carried out, the net amount deductible, on provisional basis, from the overall claim due to deviation from EMO is Rs580 million (Rs578 million financial impact due to system constraints and Rs2 million due to underutilization of efficient power plants).

Subsidies slashed by record 54pc The Authority decided to deduct this amount provisionally in the instant FCA, until NPCC/NTDC and CPPA-G provide the required details along-with complete justification in this regard to the satisfaction of the

Authority. During the hearing, CPPAG and NPCC also agreed to revise the EMO list that is posted on their website to exclude the RFO, Gas and RLNG power plants which are not supplying energy to CPPA-G due to lack of availability of fuel.

Further, while reviewing the FCA claim, the Authority observed that Partial Load was provided to Baloki, QATPL and Huaneng Shandong Ruyi (Pakistan) Energy (Private) Limited (HSRPEL) power plants even during Forced Outages and Failure to Achieve Despatch (FADL), which is non-performance/fault of the said power producers.

The Authority is of the considered view that Part Load can only be provided if the Plant is available but NPCC despatches it on part load due to system requirements.

Similarly, Part Load cannot be provided in the case of Failure of the plant to achieve the Despatch instructed by the NPCC.