Nepra okays $58bn 11-year power plan amid reservations

The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) controversially approved the Integrated System Plan (ISP) 2025 on Friday, investing about $58 billion in power generation and transmission sectors over 11 years. The decision, spanning 45 pages, was met with dissenting notes from all three Nepra members, questioning the inclusion and exclusion of major projects and bypassing the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

The ISP-2025 supersedes previous Integrated Generation Capacity Expansion Plans and considers three demand forecast scenarios: high growth, medium growth, and low growth. The low-growth scenario, using the Rationalised Capacity Addition (RCA) assumption, is adopted as the reference case for generation expansion planning, projecting a total installed capacity of 62,657MW, including 8,120MW from net metering.

Additional investments of $4.6bn are required for ongoing or committed transmission projects, while $6.05bn is needed for new transmission expansion projects, resulting in a cumulative transmission investment requirement of approximately $10.65bn. The plan also addresses the geopolitical conflict between Iran and the US by providing for a 40MW on-site power plant in the Gwadar and Makran region.

Nepra raised concerns over the exclusion of K-Electric's renewable energy projects from the ISP and the contradictory positions of ISMO and PPMC regarding consumer-end tariffs, directing that the impact of the proposed plan on consumer-end tariffs be quantified and incorporated in the main ISP report.