ISLAMABAD – Nepra Chairman Tariq Saddozai public hearing in Islamabad said that Nepra agreed to a Rs3.21 or 28 percent per unit average cut in the fuel cost component of electricity prices for the month of December 2014. Nevertheless, the decision was then put on hold after he was told that the CPPA had not factored in the cost of electricity being supplied to it from power plants currently in their trial runs.
The average cost of producing and delivering electricity across nearly all of Pakistan (except Karachi) is currently Rs13.50 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), of which Rs9.53 per unit is the fuel cost while consumers are charged Rs11.50 per unit on average, with a nearly 15% subsidy on most electricity bills borne by the government.
CPPA had sought a Rs3.21 per unit average reduction in fuel costs for consumers, given that oil-fired power plants had been able to get fuel at lower costs in December. That would translate to an average of a 28% reduction in prices, assuming the government decided to keep its subsidies constant, or a collective Rs21 billion reduction in electricity bills nationwide.
