ISLAMABAD: K-Electric has sought Power Division’s support for early approval of its Indicative Generation Plan (IGP), as the power utility company has readied its plan for additional energy to its own system and through conversion of Jamshoro’s one unit and Hubco’s furnace oil to Thar coal, sources in KE told Business Recorder.
The power utility company has written a letter to different Ministries for their support for the acquisition of timely approval of KE IGP.
According to KE, it has been closely engaged with Power Division, with regards to the development and subsequent evaluations of the IGP.
In accordance with the directives issued by the Prime Minister’s Office, KE was requested by Power Division, through a letter of August 30, 2023; to submit a plan for increasing its generation capacity during the next 10 years, while gradually reducing its reliance on the power being provided from the National Grid.
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In compliance with the requirement, KE submitted its IGP on September 3, 2023, through a letter.
Power Division subsequently, on October 09, 2023, decided to constitute a due diligence committee comprising of all concerned stakeholders, to carry out evaluation of the submitted IGP.
The Committee after several meetings and deliberations, finalized its draft report on 7th November 2023 which was subsequently circulated amongst all concerned stakeholders, for their due perusal and feedback.
After successful developments, KE’s IGP was then discussed in the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), held on December 15, 2023. It was decided by the forum that Power Division should present the matter i.e. KE’s IGP to the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE). Moreover, it was also directed by the ECC, that the plan should focus on reducing cost of electricity, as well as on the resultant subsidies, to be borne by the Government of Pakistan.
KE further stated that the conversion of 660MW Jamshoro coal power project unit-01, from the current configuration of imported to 100% Thar coal is the most critical project, that is included in KE’s IGP. The successful conversion of this project will not just assist the GoP in conserving foreign exchange, required for the import of coal for the project; but will also help in creating a successful template, that can be emulated for conversion of the remaining 3,600MW imported coal capacity to Thar coal.
KE, in its letter argued that to help achieve this goal, it has been engaged with all the concerned stakeholders and has been carrying out concerted efforts in making the requisite arrangements. This includes working with the current Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) contractor M/s Harbin Engineering International (HEI) of the project, for fine-tuning the conversion proposal.
“We have also successfully managed to convince the local lenders to extend their support for the conversion and have received the financing term-sheet from them,” claimed Shahab Qader Khan.
The power utility company has submitted that time being of extreme essence, while activities for the construction of project on imported coal are currently ongoing, window of opportunity to save the valuable foreign exchange, required for the procurement of imported coal for the project, is constantly shrinking.
KE recently executed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Hub Power Company Limited (Hubco), for the conversion of its furnace oil-based project to Thar coal.
“To successfully materialize all the projects proposed in KE’s IGP, timely support of Power Division is extremely vital,” said Shahab Khan.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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