March 2025: Nepra allows Rs3 negative adjustment for KE consumers
ISLAMABAD: National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has allowed negative adjustment of Rs 3 per unit for KE consumers for March 2025 and Rs 0.93 per unit positive adjustment for Discos consumers for April 2025 under monthly Fuel Charges Adjustment (FCA) mechanism.
In this regard, NEPRA has issued separate notifications, according to which KE's negative adjustment and Discos positive adjustment will be effective in bills of June 2025.
For Discos, NEPRA conducted a public hearing on May 29, 2025 for Discos and on on May 22, 2025 for K-Electric which was attended by representatives of industry and media.
March FCA: KE seeks Rs5.02 interim negative adjustment
According to determinations of Discos, Amir Sheikh, a commentator, submitted that this positive FCA has lowered the previously announced benefit of around Rs.7.7/kWh adversely impacting cost projections for many industrial consumers. He also questioned the dispatch of RLNG-based power plants despite the purported availability of local natural gas and pointed out that alternative suppliers, such as Mari Petroleum, may offer more cost-effective solutions.
KE during the hearing also claimed an amount ofRs.15.2 billion, on account of partial load, open cycle and degradation curves along with startup cost for the period from July 2023 to March 2025. KE also submitted that BQPS-III and KCCP heat rate adjustment for previous MYT amounting to Rs.0.6 billion and Rs.0.2 billion are also pending.
KE had sought negative adjustment of Rs 5.02 per unit for April 2025 to refund Rs 6.792 billion to its consumers.
However, regarding the amount of Rs.15.2 billion on account of partial load, open cycle and degradation curves along with startup cost for the period from July 2023 to March 2025, the Authority has already provisionally retained an amount of Rs. 12.45 billion, from monthly FCAs from Nov. 2024 to Feb. 2025, in order not to over burden the consumers at a later stage for such pending costs. Thus, as of March 2025, an amount of Rs.2.74 billion is pending on account of partial load, open cycle and degradation curves along with startup cost, as per the claims of K-Electric.
On the same analogy of not to over burden the consumers at a later stage and also to ensure timely recovery of prudent costs, the Authority has decided to provisionally withhold an amount of Rs. 2.74 billion from the worked out negative FCA of Rs.
5.0200/kWh (negative Rs. 6.79 billion) for the month of March 2025.
NEPRA has allowed negative adjustment of Rs 2.99 per unit which will provide a relief of Rs 4 billion to the consumers of Karachi.
Member (Tech) Rafique Ahmad Shaikh, has written additional notes on both the determinations in which he raised different issues.
In his note on Discos FCA determination he said that the prolonged forced outage of Guddu's 747 MW Steam Turbine (Unit 16) has necessitated continued operation in open-cycle mode, resulting in additional costs of approximately Rs. 670 million (USD 2.38 million) for the month of April 2025 alone.
Cumulatively, the financial losses attributed to this outage have reached approximately Rs. 113 billion (USD 402.14 million) since its outage from July 2022. Given the significance of the issue, the CEO of GENCO-II should be required to present a detailed update on the rehabilitation plan and the progress made on restoring Steam Turbine Unit 16 during each Monthly Fuel Cost Adjustment meeting.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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