AMER SIAL
The government may have to pay an estimated $1 billion in capacity payment for electricity purchase from three power producers from next year onwards if the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) did not timely complete the transmission lines, an official source revealed.
Three under-construction power plants include the Sahiwal Coal Power Plant of 1320 MW, the Port Qasim Power Plant of 1320 MW and three LNG based power plants of cumulative 3600 MW being built in Sheikhupura, Jhang and Kasur by the government itself, to overcome the power shortage.
These plants are expected to be operational by second quarter of 2017. The laying of transmission lines, as per NEPRA’s latest report, seems impossible, the source said adding that in that case the capacity charges could be in billions of rupees. The government, he said, needed to take steps to complete the essential transmission line projects on urgent basis.
The NEPRA’s report compiled after detailed visit on NTDC’s ongoing projects said that most of the developmental works of the company were delayed. The commitment charges were being paid due to delay in execution of projects that was a drain on public exchequer.
The regulator further noted in its report that the transmission system should be in place six months before commercial operation of power plants to ensure seamless testing and its economic benefit during the testing phase, but major transmission lines and transformation system projects were behind the schedule by six months to three years.
It means that about 4,500MW of additional power generation capacity would be available in 2017-18, but sufficient transmission facilities would not be there to effectively absorb it, resulting in its dispersal on unreliable alternate lines. The shortfall would, therefore, come under control in major load centres of Punjab but loadshedding would not completely end in the whole of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan.
Major generation projects like the 1,320 MW coal project at Port Qasim, 1,320 MW Sino-Sindh Resources, 660 MW Engro Thar Coal and 1,320 MW Jamshoro Coal are scheduled to reach the production stage before June 2017, but enabling conversion, switching and transmission systems would not be completed before June 2018. The Lahore-Matiari transmission line which is a must for evacuation of 4,500 MW of electricity from Thar and Port Qasim to Lahore and upcountry is yet to take off.