Two new power plants add 390MW to national grid

The two private sector projects started working in the last one month.


Express May 31, 2011

ISLAMABAD:


Two private sector power projects, having cumulative net capacity of 390 megawatts, have been added to the national grid in the last one month.


This was told in a meeting of the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) held on Monday under the chairmanship of Minister for Water and Power Syed Naveed Qamar, said a press statement.

One was a gas-based independent power producer (IPP) named Fauji Daharki Power Project with a capacity of 176.6 MW and was commissioned on April 22 and the other was 213.8MW Hubco-Narowal Power Project which started commercial operations on May 16.

Participants of the meeting said that another three IPPs were in construction phase which included 209MW Bhikki Power Project, which is expected to be commissioned soon, 84MW New Bong Hydropower Project and 375MW Uch-II Power Project based on gas, expected to be completed by 2013.

Qamar said that the government believed in the policy of facilitating investors and removing hurdles in processing of projects, adding the Power Generation Policy for 2002 was being reviewed to make it more investor-friendly, in consultation with public and private sector stakeholders.

He added that in order to make electricity affordable, the concept of converting existing thermal IPPs to cheaper fuels like coal, LNG, etc was being seriously considered.

Appreciating the role of PPIB in bringing investment in the power generation sector, the minister asked PPIB to focus on the development and implementation of power projects based on water and coal for medium and long-term needs.



Published in The Express Tribune, May 31st, 2011.

COMMENTS (4)

Taxed | 12 years ago | Reply Welcome to the club of circular debt
Meekal Ahmed | 12 years ago | Reply Is putting up these small plants all over the place economic? Are there no economies of scale in this business? Why should the economy be saddled with these high unit cost plants? Profits should not be earned at the cost of the end-user.
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