Electricity Up Rs 2.52 a Unit, and the Hearing Is Thursday

CPPA-G has asked NEPRA for Rs 2.52 more per unit to cover July's fuel costs. The reference charge it wants to raise is Rs 7.0929 a unit.

NEPRA hears the request on Thursday 27 August at 2pm, at NEPRA Tower and on Zoom. Its own notice invites objections, which is the part almost nobody uses.

That K-Electric line matters in Karachi. Under federal policy guidelines on uniform fuel adjustments, whatever NEPRA decides for the ex-WAPDA companies applies to K-Electric customers too.

Where July's electricity actually came from

The notice carries the full generation breakdown for the month, and it is worth reading rather than skipping.

We added each column up before publishing. The units come to exactly 15,122 GWh, the shares to exactly 100 per cent, and the money to exactly Rs 162,549 million, all matching the notice's own totals.

One fuel took nearly half the bill

Look at the RLNG row again.

RLNG produced 10.78 per cent of July's electricity and accounted for 47.5 per cent of the fuel bill. Rs 77,198 million out of Rs 162,549 million, for roughly a tenth of the power.

Now look at the other end. Hydel, wind and solar together produced 45 per cent of the electricity at no fuel cost at all. Add nuclear, at Rs 3.03 a unit, and 55.1 per cent of the country's electricity in July came from sources that accounted for 2.8 per cent of the fuel bill.

That is the shape of the problem in one table. The cheap half is already there. The expensive tenth is what moves your bill.

We are not going to tell you what the answer is. Fuel mix depends on rainfall, plant availability, contracts signed years ago and what can be imported this month. But when the next adjustment lands, this is what it is made of.

You are allowed to object, and hardly anyone does

This is the part of the notice that gets skipped, so here it is in NEPRA's own words:

"All the interested/affected parties are invited to raise written/oral objections as permissible under the law at the public hearing."

If you pay an electricity bill, you are an affected party. The hearing is online as well as in person, so attending does not mean travelling to Islamabad.

NEPRA also publishes a formal Intervention Request Form, and it is a single page. We downloaded it and read it. It asks for:

1. Your name and address.
2. How you are likely to be affected by whatever the Authority decides in the proceeding.
3. Your contention, meaning the grounds on which you are making the request.
4. The relief sought, which is what you actually want the Authority to do.
5. Any evidence, briefly, and any further comments. You may attach supplements.

That is it. No lawyer, no fee on the form, and a route to the Registrar at registrar@nepra.org.pk or NEPRA Tower, Attaturk Avenue East, G-5/1, Islamabad.

We should be honest about what we do not know. We have never filed one, we did not attend a hearing, and we cannot tell you how much weight an individual objection carries or whether one has ever changed a fuel adjustment. What we can tell you is that the route exists, it is open to you, and the notice says so plainly.

This is the third thing hitting the same bill

Worth keeping the increases separate in your head, because they arrive together and get blamed on each other.

The Rs 1.9857 a unit relief ends with August. That is not a new charge, it is the removal of a discount.

A quarterly adjustment is being sought separately to recover past costs.

This fuel adjustment, at Rs 2.52 a unit, is a third and distinct item covering July's fuel.

We set out the first two, including who is exempt, in why September electricity bills will rise. Prepaid meter users are outside part of it, which is the most useful exemption on that page.

What to do about your own bill

Objecting is one route and it is slow. Two faster things are worth doing in the same week.

Check the bill itself is right. A fuel adjustment applies to units consumed, so a wrong reading multiplies the error. If the figure looks wrong, that is a complaint with a defined process, and we set it out in how to complain about a wrong electricity bill.

Understand what your own tariff slab does. Adjustments land per unit, so the same increase costs very different amounts depending on where your consumption sits.

And if the long term answer for your household is generating your own, the rules changed this month: systems up to 25 kW no longer need NEPRA approval, which we covered in solar up to 25 kW no longer needs approval.

What we could not verify

Everything above about the request and the hearing was read on NEPRA's own advertisement, published on nepra.org.pk, on 25 August 2026. It is a scanned image with no text layer, so we read it as an image.

We cannot say what NEPRA will decide. The Authority may approve the request, reduce it or refuse it, and it has reduced requests before.

We do not know what weight public objections carry, and we make no claim that filing one changes an outcome.

We have not confirmed which month's bill this lands on. Fuel adjustments are applied in arrears and the timing is set in the determination rather than in this notice.

The generation figures are CPPA-G's as reproduced by NEPRA. They are the basis of the request rather than an independently audited account of the month.

Questions readers are asking

How much is electricity going up?

CPPA-G has requested Rs 2.52 per unit for July's fuel costs. NEPRA has not decided yet, and may approve less.

When is the NEPRA hearing?

Thursday 27 August 2026 at 2pm, at NEPRA Tower and online through a Zoom link published on its notice.

Does this affect K-Electric customers?

Yes. The notice states that under federal policy guidelines on uniform fuel adjustments, the determination also applies to K-Electric consumers.

Can an ordinary consumer object?

Yes. The notice invites all interested and affected parties to raise written or oral objections, and NEPRA publishes a one page intervention request form.

Which fuel is driving the cost?

RLNG. It was 10.78 per cent of generation in July and 47.5 per cent of the fuel bill, at Rs 47.38 a unit.

What is the cheapest source?

Nuclear at Rs 3.03 a unit. Hydel, wind and solar carry no fuel charge at all and were 45 per cent of July's generation.

Is this the same as the September increase already reported?

No. This is a third, separate item, alongside the ending of the Rs 1.9857 relief and a quarterly adjustment.