ISLAMABAD: Expressing grave concern over rising overbilling complaints and the performance of all the electricity distribution companies, including K-Electric and independent power producers (IPPs), the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Energy (Power Division) on Friday sought a detailed report on capacity payments to the IPPs.

A meeting of the committee, chaired by MNA Muhammad Idrees, was informed by Power Secretary Dr Fakhre Alam that loadshedding duration depended on losses and recovery ratios of any particular area and all Discos followed the same revenue-based load management criteria.

The Power Division’s joint secretary briefed the committee about overbilling and unannounced loadshedding in Karachi. He informed the committee that the sources and means of electricity generation were not the same in every region; thus, production costs were also different.

The generation of electricity in Karachi, he said, was mostly through thermal resources, which was one of the most expensive forms of power generation.

Seeks complete report on capacity payments to IPPs

However, he added, under the government’s uniform tariff policy, everyone in the country was paying the same electricity price even though the southern region’s generation cost was high. He said the government was providing differential payments to K-Electric through subsidies just to provide relief to the consumers.

K-Electric Chief Executive Officer Moonis Alvi told the committee that KE had been facing significant financial losses due to an increase in the number of defaulters, which was impacting the company’s ability to provide reliable and affordable energy services.

He said KE had added 2,000MW of generation capacity since its privatisation and reduced system losses from 40 per cent to 15pc.

He said the government did not allow KE to implement its plan to set up 2,000MW of coal-based power projects because of surplus capacity in the national grid and wanted to divert that to KE.

While discussing the overbilling issue, the chief executive officer of Hyderabad Electric Supply Company informed the committee that there was no overbilling in Hesco’s jurisdiction.

However, he added, the issue was investigated in case of any individual mistake regarding overbilling, and bills were corrected as per the procedure in vogue. He said that 91.8pc complaints received regarding overbilling had been resolved.

The committee expressed displeasure over overbilling complaints and the performance of independent power producers and decided to obtain a detailed briefing from IPPs on these issues in the next meeting.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2024