KARACHI: K-Electric held its 111th Annual General Meeting (AGM) for FY 2021 virtually. The meeting was chaired by Shan Ashary, Chairman of the KE Board. The meeting was attended by Moonis Alvi, Chief Executive Officer, KE, Aamir Ghaziani, Chief Financial Officer, Rizwan Pesnani, Chief Risk Officer & Company Secretary, Rizwan Dalia, Chief People Officer, Sadia Dada, Chief Marketing & Communication Officer and other members of the Board and KE leadership.
Shareholders were briefed about prevalent challenges such as continuous accumulation of outstanding net receivables from government entities over Rs 56 billion on principal basis, and delays in determination of tariff variations which had a direct impact on Company’s liquidity position and resulted in high levels of borrowings for working capital requirements.
Despite the aforementioned issues, the company remained committed and during the year invested around PKR 81 billion across the power value chain, as a result of which, the company showed strong operational performance with increase in units sent out by 9.6 percent as compared to last financial year. Further, with targeted loss reduction initiatives, the company managed to reduce its T&D losses to 17.5% in FY 2021 from 19.7% in FY 2020.
Construction of the 900MW RLNG-fired BQPS-III is being pursued on fast track basis. Successful completion of the required rehabilitation works on 220 kV KDA-Jamshoro circuit along with the implementation of cross-trip scheme enabled KE to off-take additional power of around 450-600 MW from National Grid, which remained critical in managing the peak summer demand in 2021. Additionally, the projects of 500 kV KKI and 220 kV Dhabeji grids have also been initiated that will allow the company to import a total of up to 2,050 MW from the National Grid, thus managing the growing power demand in KE’s service area.
Furthermore, during the year, KE enhanced its transmission capacity through the addition of 5 new power transformers along with a 132kV Mehmoodabad Grid Station, which will help in catering to the rapid demand growth from the residential segment in the area. Moreover, the addition/replacement of power transformers resulted in the net addition of 184 MVAs during the year, taking the total transformation capacity to 6,536 MVAs which is sufficient to meet the peak demand in KE’s service area.
KE to date has converted around 11,000 Pole Mounted Transformers (PMTs) to Aerial Bundled Cable (ABC).
This process has enabled the company to significantly reduce its T&D losses and benefit consumers through reduction in load-shed combined with community engagement and upliftment initiatives. By virtue of these initiatives, in FY 2021, 125,000 customers were converted from hook connections to metered connection as compared to 45,000 customers in FY 2020.
K-Electric also launched the first edition of the KHI Awards in FY2021, whereby the company has supported over 30 organizations across various categories which are working for the betterment of the city. The recipients included recognized names such as the Indus Hospital, Hunar Foundation, and others, with the total asset base of the winners standing at PKR 54 billion.
As part of its diversification strategy, K-Solar (Pvt) Ltd was launched which commenced its operations in June 2021, specializing in distributed generation business and will provide sustainable and long-term solar solutions to residential, commercial, and industrial consumers.
Moreover, furthering its customer centricity initiatives, in addition to customer facilitation and interaction platforms, KE also launched complete services for its senior citizens and specially-abled customers via 118 call center. Furthermore, K-Electric launched a WhatsApp Service for residential customers in Karachi and adjoining areas which can be used to lodge technical or billing complaints, obtain duplicate bills as well as income tax certificates, and download the forms for new connections along with a checklist of required documents.
The KE Management also expressed their commitment to make investments of around USD 1 billion in the next two years to ensure provision of safe and reliable supply of power to the consumers. However, for these planned investments to materialize, timely approvals from NEPRA and resolution of issues related to KE’s receivables from government entities and departments would be critical.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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