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Islamabad: The primary cause of high electricity costs in the country is capacity charges, with 22 public sector companies responsible for 48% of these charges.
Sources reveal that public power plants continue to benefit from these charges, with 22 public companies receiving 169.36 billion rupees over the past three months.
WAPDA’s 21 power plants operated at 21% capacity, yet they were paid 21.27 billion rupees in capacity charges.
The KP government-owned Malakand III power plant operated at 40% capacity but received charges equivalent to 100% of its generation capacity, amounting to 200 million rupees.
The Punjab government-owned Quaid-e-Azam Thermal operated at 42% capacity but collected 11.52 billion rupees.
The Punjab Thermal Power Company’s idle power plant was paid 10.64 billion rupees without generating any units, while Quaid-e-Azam Solar in Punjab, operating at 16.3% capacity, received 2.41 billion rupees.
Federal government-owned three junk power plants, operating at just 5.8% capacity, received 5.95 billion rupees in capacity charges.
The Jhang and Blocki RLNG power plants, running at 72% capacity, collected 15.73 billion rupees. Chashma Nuclear’s four units, operating at 80% capacity, received 37.33 billion rupees, and KANUPP received the highest amount of 64.23 billion rupees.