Pakistan’s power sector has posted growth of 6.5 percent in power generation for the ten months of the current fiscal year, a report published by brokerage and financial services firm, Arif Habib Limited, stated on Monday.
On a month-over-month comparison, power generation went up by 25 percent in April 2021 compared to April 2020. This is due to lower base and higher generation of gas due to suspension of gas to captive power plants.
According to the report, major contributors to this increase were Hydel (25 percent), RLNG (25 percent), Coal (23 percent), Gas (12 percent), Nuclear (10 percent), Wind (2 percent), Furnace Oil (1 percent), and Bagasse (0.7 percent). Power generation from all sources increased in April 2021, except wind generation that went down by 15 percent.
The fuel cost of power generation also shot up by 21 percent during April 2021, to clock in at Rs. 5.57 per kilowatt-hour. The coal-based cost was up 25 percent to Rs. 8.01, primarily attributed to higher coal prices that showed an increase of 49 percent.
Gas-based cost of generation went up by 17.1 percent to clock in at Rs. 7.46 per KWh and nuclear-based cost showed a 10.8 percent increase in cost at Rs. 1.11 KWh.
