According to NEPRA’s report, the federal government has made immense improvements in recoveries and reduction in losses. Getting into details, the power sector registered a 16.51% increase in recoveries in 2018-19 as compared to an increase of 12.32% in 2017-18. Interestingly, the units sold showed a growth rate of only 2.16%, whereas the amount billed shows a growth rate of 13.22%. This is mainly due to the increase in consumer end tariffs. The notification for the change in consumer end tariff was issued in 2015-16, but it was not implemented until March 2018.
The following table shows energy sales and amount billed to the end consumers by distribution companies (DISCOs) over a period of six years:
The most important aspect while looking at improvements is the energy sold. For the energy sector to thrive there must be a steady increase in units sold as that would bring the capacity costs down, which in turn will lead to an overall lower energy cost.
According to the State Industry Reports of NEPRA, an increase of 5.85% was recorded for units sold in 2015-2016, the following year the units sold increased by 6.71%. In 2017-2018 it showed a massive increase of 12.68%, however, the units sold sharply declined in 2018-2019 to 2.16%.
