Electricity generation up 7 percent in October

KARACHI: The country’s overall power generation surged 7.0 percent to 10,243GWh (13,767MW) in October 2020, compared to 9,572GWh (12,866MW) during the corresponding month last year, data released by the National Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) showed on Monday.

This spike could be attributed to the improvement in hydel and RLNG-based generation, which exhibited a hefty increase of 30 percent and 17 percent on yearly basis, respectively.

“During October, fuel cost for power generation went down by 18 percent to Rs4.12/KWh mainly due to higher generation on hydel along with decline in RLNG-based fuel cost, which was down 34 percent,” a report issued by Arif Habib Limited noted.

However, coal-based and nuclear-based power generation dipped 19 percent each, while there was a two percent decline in gas-based electricity generation. During the month, the highest contribution came from hydropower at 31 percent, followed by RLNG at 28 percent, coal at 19 percent, gas 11 percent, and nuclear seven percent, whereas furnace oil contributed the lowest at two percent, the data showed.

During 10MCY20 (January-October 2020), power generation was down 0.6 percent to 108,088GWh (14,815MW) compared to 109,026GWh (14,943MW) during the same period last year. In this period, hydel contributed 33 percent, coal 21 percent, RLNG 20 percent, gas 12 percent, nuclear seven percent, and FO contributed four percent in overall electricity generation.

Gas-based power generation depicted a decline of 27 percent followed by 24 percent drop in FO-based generation and 18 percent cut in RLNG-based generation. However, coal, hydel and nuclear-based generation witnessed an increase of 31 percent, 13 percent and seven percent, respectively.

“The rise in hydel and coal-based generation was owed to induction of new plants in the system,” Arif Habib Limited report noted.

During 10MCY20, fuel cost for power generation went down 17 percent to an average of Rs4.41/KWh mainly due to rise in hydel, coal and nuclear-based generation.