Power consumers will find relief in winter as the government is planning to cut down power tariffs for domestic and commercial consumers in order to encourage the shift of space heating from gas to electricity. This will aid the government in solving the gas shortage during winters.
Energy Minister Hammad Azhar tweeted, “Ministry of Energy is moving a proposal for seasonal emerging pricing for domestic & commercial consumers to encourage power consumption during off-peak months. The success of Industrial Energy Package demonstrates that such incentives provide relief & absorb part of surplus capacity.”
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Power Tabish Gauhar had suggested this when he joined office last year. He explained that power demand could be boosted through reducing consumer tariff and that would have a denominator effect.
According to Gauhar’s stats even at the existing electricity and gas tariffs, if 300,000 three-phase “well-off” consumers were to switch from gas to electricity — AC Inverter — for space heating, “we could potentially see a 300MW increase in power demand and 50mmcfd decrease in gas usage”.
He further mentioned that if the power tariff is discounted and if gas charges are enhanced, the impact on the power demand will be much more.
