ISLAMABAD: Review motions filed against upfront tariff for gas-fired Captive Power Plants (CPPs) has been discarded by National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) on Wednesday.
Suo motu proceedings had been started by Nepra for establishing upfront tariff for short-term usage of available generation capacity from CPPs on gas. Upfront tariff in this regard was notified by Nepra last year in end of July, reported an English daily.
The upfront tariff for CPPs as per Nepra constituted of fixed cost and fuel cost component. The determined upfront tariff for CPPs approved by Nepra was Rs7.6973 per unit of which Rs 6.0469 per unit constituted reference fuel cost and Rs1.6504 per unit fixed cost component.
Two entities had challenged the upfront tariff approved by Nepra, i.e. Mekotex Limited and Sitara Energy Limited and sought review of fuel cost component, degradation and efficiency, plant availability, return on equity, cost of working capital etc.
The petitions of both companies were accepted by Nepra and they were given an opportunity to provide their views in a hearing held in mid-October at the regulators office. The companies while submitting their responses failed to provide any additional evidence assisting their objections and couldn’t ascertain any errors in the upfront tariff determined by Nepra.
Nepra in its response said as per regulations, review of decision can only be sought when any errors get detected or discovery of new and important matter of evidence takes place.
MEL and SEL’s failure to provide any concrete argument in its petition led to the ultimate dismissal of their petition which was filed to seek revision in upfront tariff for CPPs.
