Karachi, March 20, 2019: Power generation witnessed a decline of 4.2 percent YoY to 6,687 GWh or 9,951 MW during Feb 2019 as compared to 6,979 GWh or 10,386 MW during Feb 2018. While, fuel cost has also declined by 33 percent MoM to Rs 4.8/KWh.
Major contributors during Feb 2019 were remained Gas, Hydel, Coal, RLNG, Nuclear and Furnace Oil (FO). However, during the first eight months of this fiscal year (8MFY19) power generation witnessed an increase of 3.6 percent YoY. The share of FO based generation has decreased to 1.7 percent compared to 8.3 percent same period of last fiscal year.
The share of Hydel based generation has increased to 23 percent from 19.4 percent during Feb 2018.
A report prepared by Arif Habib Research revealed that power generation from RLNG took a dip of 16 percent YoY to 1,129 GWh during Feb 2019. The decline in generation was witnessed due to decline in RLNG based generation of KAPCO to 1 GWh compared to 385 GWh.
Along with this Roush and Nandipur generated zero electricity compared to 105 GWh and 284 GWh in Feb 2018, respectively.
However, generation from newly inducted RLNG power plants increased by 9.6 times to 1,128 GWh in Feb 2019 compared to 117 GWh in Feb 2018. The load factor of Bhikki, Haveli Bahadur Shah, and Balloki settled at 40 percent, 48 percent and 35 percent, respectively.
The report also revealed that fuel cost has also declined by 33 percent MoM to Rs 4.8/KWh. Fuel cost decline has been witnessed due to the following reasons:
- Hydel based power generation witnessed an increase of 3.2x MoM to 1,523GWh. Rise in hydel based generation is witnessed due to119 GWh being generated from Tarbela 4th extension during Feb’19 compared to Jan’19 zero generation was witnessed from this plant.
- Wind based power generation witnessed an increase of 36 percent MoM to 213 GWh.
- Solar based generation increased by 23 percent MoM to 53 GWh.
- Furnace oil based generation declined by 93 percent MoM to 112 GWh. Average cost of generation on FO remained Rs 11.9 /KWh which is 14 percent MoM lower from Jan 2019 of Rs 13.9 /KWh. The decline in FO based cost is backed by 1 percent MoM decline in average FO prices and generation from relatively more efficient power plants.
- RLNG based cost of generation declined by 7.5 percent MoM to Rs 9.2/KWh. However, generation also witnessed a decline of 0.8 percent MoM to 1,129GWh.
