Every winter the same thing happens. The weather cools down, the fans go off, and the electricity bill somehow goes up anyway. This year people are already bracing for it. On 30 October ARY News reported, citing Power Division sources, that the fuel price adjustment could climb to two or three times its current level during December, January and February. Load management may also get worse over those months.
Nothing here is final. NEPRA decides the actual adjustment month by month, and the numbers can come in lower or higher than the early talk. Still, it is a good time to understand what is on your bill, because most of us only ever look at the total.
Why winter costs more
Fuel price adjustment, or FPA, is the gap between what fuel was assumed to cost when the tariff was set and what it actually cost. If power plants spend more on fuel than planned, the extra gets added to your bill per unit. If they spend less, it can come off.
In summer the rivers are full and hydropower covers a large share of generation, which is cheap. Come winter the flow drops, so more electricity has to come from plants that burn fuel, and the reports say international fuel and LNG prices are high right now. Put those two things together and it is easy to see why the adjustment tends to jump when it is cold.
What it could do to your bill
Because FPA is charged per unit, it hits heavy users hardest. Take a made-up example, not a forecast: if the adjustment went from Rs 2 to Rs 5 per unit, a household using 300 units would pay roughly Rs 900 extra, and GST would come on top of that.
The adjustment is not the only thing on the bill. There is the slab rate, which gets higher as your units go up, then QTR, GST and electricity duty. ARY News has also reported that under the tariff which took effect in January 2026, fixed charges are linked to sanctioned load, so look at your last bill and see whether it has a fixed charge line. Rates change, so trust the numbers printed on your own bill over anything you read online, this article included.
Get a rough number before the bill arrives
Open the IESCO Electricity Bill Calculator, put in the units you expect to use (last December or January is a decent starting point), and use the FPA and QTR figures from your latest bill. Then try a higher FPA and watch what happens to the total. It takes a minute, and you will know whether to start cutting back now rather than in February. If you want to understand what each line means, our post on how an IESCO bill is calculated goes through it step by step.
Cutting units without freezing
Heating is where winter units disappear. Electric heaters and geysers draw a lot of power, so if gas or LPG heating is available where you live and you can use it safely, compare the running cost. And please do not run an unvented gas heater in a closed room. Carbon monoxide is a real danger every winter.
A geyser on a timer instead of running all day can save a fair bit. Stopping draughts around doors and windows keeps a room warm with less heating. LED bulbs, switching things off at the wall instead of leaving them on standby, running the washing machine only with a full load: small stuff, but it adds up over three months.
Check the bill before you pay
Take a photo of your meter every month. When the bill comes, compare the units with your photo, then check the FPA figure against NEPRA's notification for that month on nepra.org.pk. If something does not match, contact your distribution company and ask for a correction before the due date. It is your money, and mistakes do happen.
General information only, not financial advice. Figures and rules can change. Last updated 4 November 2026.
Source: ARY News, 'Pakistanis may face higher electricity bills in coming months', 30 October 2026 (https://arynews.tv/pakistanis-may-face-higher-electricity-bills-in-coming-months).
