ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Friday allowed K-Electric to charge another Rs650 million to its consumers in the current month at the rate of 58 paise per unit under monthly fuel cost adjustment (FCA) for power consumed in February.

In a notification, the regulator said the KE had sought a Rs1.66 per unit increase in FCA for February to recover Rs1.87bn. However, after examination of evidence and data provided by the KE, Nepra worked out an increase of about 58 paise per unit involving a revenue impact of Rs650m.

The additional FCA would apply to all the consumer categories except electric vehicle charging stations (EVCS) and lifeline consumers. However, the impact of monthly FCA, which is not passed on to certain categories of consumers, would be accounted for in the quarterly adjustments for recovery from other consumers.

The fuel cost adjustment would be shown separately in April’s bill based on units consumed in February.

The FCA is reviewed every month as per the tariff regime applicable across the country and is usually applied to the consumer’s bills for one month only.

Under the tariff mechanism, changes in fuel cost are passed on to consumers only on monthly basis through an automatic mechanism while quarterly tariff adjustments on account of variation in the power purchase price, capacity charges, variable operation and maintenance costs, use of system charges and including the impact of transmission and distribution losses are built in the base tariff by the federal government.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2023