ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has approved up to Rs1.90 per unit additional quarterly tariff adjustment (QTA) starting June across the country, including Karachi, to facilitate power companies’ mopping up another Rs46.6 billion from consumers.

Under a judgment issued late night by the regulator on Friday, the consumers would be paying Rs1.90 per unit additional charge in June and then 93 paise each in July and August. Consumers with first 100 unit monthly consumption in protected lifeline category would be the only exception.

“The authority has decided to allow the instant positive quarterly adjustments of Rs46.613bn pertaining to the 3rd quarter of the FY24, in a period of three months i.e. June to August 2024, at the rate of Rs.l.90/kWh, Rs.0.93kWh & Rs.0.93IkWh for June, July and August 2024 respectively, to apply to all consumer categories, except lifeline consumers”, it said in a statement.

The power companies sought Rs52bn additional funds for the quarter—January to March 2024—at the rate of Rs1.45 per unit. The regulator, however, disallowed specific claims.

The government has already filed petitions for a 25pc increase in base national electricity tariff to become effective from July 1 to raise about Rs1.2tr additional revenue next year and ensure annual revenue requirement of about Rs4tr in FY25 for power companies.

In their separate tariff petitions, the Discos have pushed to raise about Rs51.88bn from their consumers in three coming months under QTA for January-March 2023. As per recent government and regulator decisions, the quarterly adjustments for Discos are now automatically applicable to KE’s consumers.

The Discos have sought the increase to finance the additional financial impact of capacity charges arising out of currency devaluation and interest rates besides the market operator fee, the impact of transmission and distribution losses on fuel cost adjustments, variable operation and maintenance charges for the third quarter of the current fiscal year.

Under the petitions, the disco from Peshawar demanded the highest claim of Rs14.72bn, followed by Rs9.3bn by Faisalabad Electric, Rs8.17bn by Islamabad Electric, and Rs5.4bn by Hyderabad Electric. They are followed by a Rs5.39bn claim from Quetta Electric, Rs3.62bn by Lahore Electric, and Rs3.6bn by Multan Electric. Sukkur Electric has filed another Rs2.8bn claim. Gujranwala and Tribal Electric have proposed a reduction of Rs900 million and Rs560m, respectively.

Discos claimed the biggest chunk of the additional cumulative burden on account of capacity charges, Rs31.4bn, for the quarter, followed by Rs5.5bn on account of variable charges.

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

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2024