Staff Reporter
Islamabad
The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority published its ‘State of Industry Report’ for the year 2018. The report highlighted significant progress in the performance of K-Electric, as compared to the preceding years.
Comparing the figures of the year 2011 and 2018, NEPRA has appreciated that; KE has achieved a 61.5% reduction in safety incidents, while its fault rate has also decreased by 59.7% and the average load-shedding has come down from 2 hours to 1.26 hours daily. Analyzing KE’s performance for the FY 2017-2018, NEPRA has highlighted major improvement in KE’s system reliability, as it achieved a 52.5% decrease in average outage during per interconnection point, as compared to the preceding year.
KE’s overall financial recovery ratio of 91% has slightly improved over the last year ratio of 90%. The recovery position in domestic sector has also improved from 82% in FY 2016-2017 to 84% in FY 2017-2018. However, governance issues of XWDISCOs along with other issues including delayed tariff notification hurt the overall sustainability of the sector.
KE has succeeded in significantly reducing its Transmission and Distribution (T&D) Losses as compared to other DISCOs. In 2009, KEL’s T&D Losses were 35.9%. However, through a combination of loss reduction projects and initiatives, such as use of Aerial Bundled Cable (ABC), the company has mitigated these losses by 15.5% points, bringing it down to 20.4% in 2018. While overall, DISCOs have experienced an increase of 1.62 percentage points in their T&D Losses, from 16.7% in 2009 to 18.32% in 2018. In terms of Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) Losses, KEL’s AT&C Losses have reduced from 43.2% in 2009 to 27.5% in 2018, showing a decrease of 15.7% percentage points by 2018.
The report also acknowledges marked improvement in overcoming the problem of overloaded feeders and transformers in Karachi. The privatized power utility continues to maintain integrated systems of generation, transmission and distribution. It has made remarkable efforts to meet the supply and demand gap, by consistently increasing its generation capacity and by purchasing power from IPPs. From 2017 to 2018, KE continued to increase its consumer-base with 6.5% additional consumers. In comparison, other DISCOs added only 5.6% additional consumers from 2017 to 2018.
Evaluating KE’s investment plans for power-generation projects, NEPRA has appreciated that; KE will be increasing the generation capacity of its existing plants and also adding various new power plants to its fleet over the next few years. These include; 900 MW re-gasified liquefied natural gas (RLNG) power plant at its Bin Qasim Power Complex and a 700 MW coal-fired power plant. KE also plans to induct several additional Independent Power Projects (IPPs) with KE’s equity stakes.
Looking at the power-regulator’s observations and positive remarks about KE’s performance, it is evident that; being the only privately-owned power-utility in Pakistan, KE is consistently delivering results that are way better than all other DISCOs. Being a resourceful enterprise, KE is making additional investments of billions of Dollars in the energy industry of Pakistan, to ensure reliable power supply in the country’s biggest commercial metropolis.
