Pakistan’s power distribution companies have asked the regulator to let them recover another Rs23.33 billion from consumers, and the largest single item in the request is a bill for electricity capacity that may never have been used. The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) will hold a public hearing on the request on 17 November, and if it approves the adjustment, the charge will reach consumers across the country, including those served by K-Electric in Karachi.
What the Discos asked for
Eleven former WAPDA distribution companies, known as XWDISCOs, filed a combined quarterly tariff adjustment request for the third quarter of calendar year 2026, covering July to September. The net figure they seek is Rs23.326 billion, according to a NEPRA notice reported by The News on 6 November. A quarterly adjustment is the mechanism through which distribution companies recover costs that were not covered by the base tariff during a three-month period. The request is not yet approved, and no per-unit rate has been fixed. That decision comes only after the hearing.
Capacity charges are the whole story
The numbers inside the request tell a sharper story than the headline figure. Capacity charges alone stand at Rs38.917 billion, which is about 167 percent of the net amount the companies seek. Capacity charges are payments to power plants for being available to generate, whether or not their electricity was actually used. In other words, the single biggest line in the request is a payment for generation capacity, not for power consumed. Two smaller lines sit beside it: Rs7.79 billion for the impact of transmission and distribution losses on the monthly fuel cost adjustment, and Rs5.597 billion in variable operation and maintenance costs. Together, the three positive lines add up to Rs52.304 billion. The request also notes that the capacity charge figure includes the impact of net metering and net billing units, the rooftop solar systems that feed power back into the grid.
The deduction that cuts the bill by more than half
The reason the net ask is Rs23.33 billion rather than Rs52.3 billion is a single negative adjustment of Rs29.252 billion, arising from incremental electricity units consumed during the quarter. That deduction wipes out about 56 percent of the gross claim before a small addition of Rs272 million for use-of-system charges and the CPPA-G agency fee brings the total to Rs23.326 billion. The arithmetic matters because it shows how much of the outcome depends on one line. If NEPRA trims the capacity charge claim or questions the incremental-units deduction at the hearing, the final figure moves by billions either way.
The overlap NEPRA has already flagged
NEPRA has already pointed to one problem in the filing. The regulator said the distribution companies had included the impact of transmission and distribution losses in the September fuel cost adjustment, even though the authority has not yet notified that fuel adjustment. The calculations are based on the fuel adjustment requested by the Central Power Purchasing Agency-Guarantee (CPPA-G). The warning matters because the same losses figure could end up counted twice, once inside the September fuel adjustment and once inside this quarterly adjustment, unless NEPRA strips it out of one of them. The September fuel adjustment itself is a separate live issue: the Power Division has projected it at Rs2.56 per unit, worth about Rs32.7 billion, to be collected in November bills. NEPRA is still holding the Rs2.56 fuel adjustment decision for November bills, so consumers face two separate charges moving through the regulator at the same time.
What happens next
The hearing on 17 November is the next decision point. NEPRA will examine each claimed cost, and its determination will set the per-unit rate and the months over which it is recovered. Three questions will decide how much consumers actually pay. First, how much of the Rs38.917 billion capacity claim survives scrutiny, including the net metering component. Second, whether the Rs29.252 billion deduction for incremental units is accepted in full. Third, whether the regulator removes the transmission and distribution losses figure from one of the two adjustments so it is not charged twice. Until the hearing, the Rs23.33 billion remains a request, not a bill. Fuel costs, which feed into both adjustments, move with the dollar, so the USD to PKR exchange rate today is worth watching while the hearing approaches. The request also lands in a week when the ECC approved Rs359bn in extra grants across government, a sign of how crowded the fiscal calendar already is. For more business and economy news from Pakistan, visit the PakMirror business section.
