ISLAMABAD: The fuel cost for electricity consumers of all state-owned distribution companies (Discos) would reduce by only 28 paise per unit in February, notwithstanding the Rs1.04 per unit lower cost on account of consumption in December 2024.

This was disclosed by state-owned Central Power Purchase Agency (CPPA) Chief Executive Officer Rehan Akhtar at a public hearing called by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Thursday.

He explained that consumers of all Discos paid a negative FCA of 76 paise per unit in January on account of November consumption and had proposed Rs1.04 per unit for February on account of December consumption, therefore, the net decrease for consumers would be 28 paise per unit.

He said the winter incentive package for industry resulted in about 1.8 million additional units in the Discos network and about 260,000 in K-Electric, as the CPPA claimed about 1.4pc overall growth in electricity demand in December compared to last year.

Once formally notified, Discos would refund about Rs4bn to consumers in the February bill.

This will be the 6th month in a row that FCAs remain negative, mainly because of substantial fuel costs allowed by Nepra through a 20pc increase in base tariff effective July 1, 2024. About 78pc of the total power supply during December flowed from domestic fuel sources, almost half of that at zero fuel cost.

The CPPA, which filed the petition for negative adjustment of fuel cost for December, said the power consumption was 1.3pc higher than the same month of last year and 2.6pc lower than in November 2024. It reported that electricity delivered to Discos stood at 7,516 gigawatt hours (Gwh) in December 2024 compared to 7,716 gigawatt hours (Gwh) in November and 7,418Gwh in December 2023.

The CPPA claimed that the average fuel cost amounted to Rs9.60 per unit in December 2024 against a reference rate of Rs10.64 per unit and Rs11 per unit in the same month of 2023.

Nuclear energy took over the top position in electricity supply to the national grid as hydroelectric supply dropped in the last week of December due to the annual canal closure. Nuclear power contribution to the grid improved to almost 26.5pc, up from less than 21pc in November.

On the other hand, the share of hydropower dropped to 22.8pc in December 2024, mainly because of annual closures for maintenance from 35.61pc in November.

Hydropower has no fuel cost.

The third biggest share in the national grid came from RLNG at 20.7pc, up from 11.3pc in November. This was followed by a 12.3pc share from local gas in December, up from 10.7pc in November.

The coal-based generation supply dropped drastically to 11.6pc in December from its 19pc share in November.

Of this, the share of local coal-based generation dropped to 10pc in December from 12.68pc in November and imported coal share also fell to 1.6pc from 5.94pc in November.

The LNG-based power generation cost in December stood at Rs22.73 per unit, followed by Rs19 per unit from imported coal and Rs17.7 per unit on local coal, which surprisingly increased from Rs14.36 per unit in November.

On the other hand, the cost of local gas-based generation stood at Rs13.4 per unit, and nuclear fuel cost amounted to Rs1.7 per unit. Together, three renewable energy sourceswind, bagasse and solarcontributed 5.6pc share to the grid.

Wind and solar energy have no fuel cost, while bagassebased generation costs Rs 5.98 per unit. Electricity imports from Iran had around 0.4pc contribution to the total power supply, and their per-unit cost was reported at about Rs 28.06 per unit.