The Price of Power, a Nepra Hearing, and a Story Sent to the Wrong Address

It was nearly midnight at the Liverpool flat. A Zoom window was open on the laptop screen, and inside it, a hearing of Pakistan's power regulator, Nepra, was underway. My job is to write about cricket, but tonight there was no cricket on the screen. There was a petition from the Central Power Purchasing Agency (Guarantee) Ltd, proposing an increase in electricity prices for 2027. During the hearing, it was stated that the average cost per unit could range from 27 rupees 42 paise to 28 rupees 50 paise. Listening to it felt like this was not a cricket scorecard but the pulse of a country's economy. To understand the story behind this hearing, we need some context. In Pakistan's power system, most generators are Independent Power Producers, who have contracts with the government. A major part of this contract is the capacity charge. Simply put, these companies must be paid a fixed amount whether their electricity is used or not. As of 2026, these capacity charges stood at approximately 1.914 trillion rupees, the largest single component of total costs. The CPPA-G petition states that in 2027, total costs will be around 3.38 trillion rupees, while sales revenue will be about 2.77 trillion rupees. To bridge this gap, electricity prices must go up. But Nepra is not just hearing the proposal; it has also made some adjustments. For example, it directed that KIBOR be set at 12 percent instead of 11.70 percent. This small change sends a big message: the regulator does not want consumers to bear extra burden if interest rates rise in the future. Now to the core analysis. The most important aspect of this petition is its six scenarios, which show various possible futures. In the best-case scenario (ideal case), the cost per unit would be 26 rupees 42 paise. In the worst-case scenario (downside case), this cost could reach 28 rupees 80 paise to 29 rupees 30 paise. That is a difference of about 13 to 15 percent. Two factors primarily drive this difference: international fuel oil prices (Brent crude) and the value of the Pakistani rupee against the dollar. The petition clearly states that uncertainty around these two is the greatest. For example, the price of RLNG (Regasified Liquefied Natural Gas) and its fluctuations over the year. There is another factor, often less discussed in petitions—water availability. The irrigation dependence of the Indus basin and the uncertainty of monsoon rains directly affect hydropower generation, which in turn pressures the fuel mix. This is where I feel we are missing something important. When we talk about electricity prices, we think only of numbers. But these numbers are tied to people's lives. The new prices are set to take effect from January 1, 2026. That means a family might have to spend a larger share of their monthly budget on electricity. This extra burden will also fall on industries already struggling with global competition. Industry representatives opposed the increase at the hearing, arguing that higher costs would raise production costs and hurt export competitiveness. It is worth noting that none of the six scenarios in the petition outlines how this extra cost will be covered. It only says the government will decide later whether to provide subsidies. This uncertainty is the biggest risk. But here is my real point. This entire analysis has been sent to the wrong address. I work for a cricket-focused platform, but this report arrived under the domain label 'cricket_asia.' Yet there is not a single cricket word in it—no team, no player, no match. It is a Pakistani energy regulation report. This error is not small. If such mistakes enter our analytical systems, we will make decisions based on false information. I believe this is a lesson for us: we should not determine where information goes without verifying it. The biggest lesson from this hearing for me is that the politics of electricity prices and the politics of cricket are woven from the same thread. Both are games of numbers—but behind the numbers lie people's hopes, fears, and daily struggles. The Nepra hearing will end, and new prices will be announced. But its impact will fall on those people who might be sitting down to watch cricket tonight, wondering how they will pay next month's bill. These two worlds—cricket and electricity—are not really separate. Both are part of our lives, where we recalculate every day.