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| 07 December 2004 | Tuesday | 24 Shawwal 1425 |
18pc tariff hike for Chashma N-plant
ISLAMABAD, Dec 6: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Tuesday increased the tariff for Chashma Nuclear Power Plant (Chashnupp) by 18 per cent to reduce its growing losses.
Under the Nepra determination, the Chashnupp would now charge Rs2.66 per unit to the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) instead of Rs2.25 per unit approved by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet.
Chashnupp is a 300-mw nuclear power project and has been selling its electricity to Wapda's NTDC since 2002. The higher tariff of Chashnupp will add to the expenditure of NTDC which will subsequently be passed on to consumers.
Chashnupp has been selling electricity to Wapda/NTDC at the rate of Rs2.25/KWh, according to a decision of the ECC. In its tariff petition to Nepra, Chashnupp said it had suffered a revenue shortfall due to the low tariff allowed by the ECC. It requested Nepra to determine its tariff in a way that it recovered its cost and paid its debt service liability.
It had also sought permission to recover the past shortfall in revenues through future tariff and demanded a tariff of Rs3.17 per unit. After a hearing of the petition and based on the evidence and arguments submitted by Chashnupp and the analysis carried out by Nepra experts, the authority decided to allow the power plant a tariff of Rs2.66/kWh for sale of its electricity to NTDC for a period ending June 30, 2008.
A Nepra announcement said that Chashnupp "has been allowed to raise its tariff by about 18 per cent". The revised tariff averages to about 4.44 cents a unit which is still much lower than most of the IPPs which range between 6 and 9 cents a kWh, Nepra said.
The Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) is monitoring the safety aspects with respect to the nuclear part of the process while Nepra is regulating the power generation part.
In view of the imminent shortage of power generation capacity in the country the induction and enhancement of nuclear power generation will contribute significantly to the provision of a reliable source of power to consumers through the national grid, Nepra said.
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