KARACHI: Pakistan generated 14,880 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity in July of the current financial year, marking a slight increase of 0.3 per cent from 14,839 GWh produced in the same month last year.
However, power generation saw a significant rise of 10.5 per cent compared to June of the previous financial year, when total generation was 13,460 GWh, according to the latest power generation data released on Monday.
Head of Research at Arif Habib Securities Tahir Abbas observed that the actual power generation in July was 10 per cent below the reference generation. He anticipates that this shortfall could lead to higher capacity charges in the second quarter of this fiscal year’s tariff adjustment.Fuel costs for power generation rose by 7.0 per cent year-on-year to nearly Rs9 per unit in July 2024, up from Rs8.34 per unit in July 2023. For the fiscal year 2024, fuel costs had decreased by 6.0 per cent to Rs8.8 per unit.
In July 2024, the major sources of power generation included hydel (35.9 per cent), RLNG (20 per cent), and nuclear (13.4 per cent). The breakdown of power generation from various sources shows that hydel-based generation fell by 3.0 per cent year-on-year, totalling 5,341 GWh in July 2024 compared to 5,518 GWh last year.
On a month-on-month basis, hydel power output increased by 13 per cent from 4,729 GWh in June.RLNG power generation rose by nearly 2.0 per cent year-on-year, from 2,918 GWh in July 2023 to 2,970 GWh in July 2024, and increased by 22 per cent month-on-month.
Coal (imported) power generation decreased significantly by 48 per cent year-on-year, dropping to 1,137 GWh in July 2024 from 2,180 GWh last year, though it rose by 78 per cent from 637 GWh in June.