ISLAMABAD/Lahore: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Tuesday concluded that ex-Wapda distribution companies (Discos) and K-Electric would charge between 48 paise to Rs1.71 additional fuel cost, respectively, from their consumers for electricity consumed in January, under monthly fuel cost adjustment (FCA) mechanism.

The decisions were made on Tuesday after two separate public hearings. The cumulative additional burden on consumers under the FCA in the current month would range between Rs6-10bn. This would entail additional revenue of about Rs1.70bn to the KE and Rs4 to 8bn to Discos, depending on a final notification.

Simultaneously, Nepra also completed hearing on another request of the KE for Rs7.37 per unit negative adjustments to consumers on account of the second quarterly adjustment for 2022-23 but did not announce its conclusive figure given the fact that quarterly adjustments subsequently become part of the national average tariff for subsidy calculations.

Likewise, the ex-Wapda Discos had proposed an additional FCA of Rs1.17 per unit to generate about Rs9.5bn more funds in March. The regulator, however, calculated a positive FCA of 48 paise per unit with a revenue impact of about Rs4bn. It, however, said the increase to go up to 99 paise per unit on account of some previous adjustments that were now in the final stages of scrutiny.

KE multi-year tariff Nepra is set to conduct a public hearing on the multi-year tariff petition and investment proposal of the K-Electric for the period 2023-30 in Islamabad on Wednesday.

The hearing was earlier planned for Feb 21 but was rescheduled by the regulator to give a chance to all stakeholders, especially consumers, to review (the petition) and prepare comments. This time around the company has filed for an unbundled tariff, which means it is seeking separate tariffs for its generation, transmission, distribution and supply side of businesses.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2023