Apropos a news item "Pepco admits installing inefficient plant" carried by Business Recorder on 3, July 2009, Pepco has claimed that the news item contains information that has been taken out of the context, and thus conveys an inaccurate account of Pepco's strategic planning and progress in containing the ongoing power generation.
"The news item refers to the representations made by Pepco in a meeting held on 14 May 2009. During this meeting, Pepco informed participants that rental power plants were being awarded through an internationally-competitive bidding process in order to urgently realise additional power generation capacity."
"The rental model is employed throughout the world and helps in meeting emergency power requirements. During the last several years, policy did not permit public sector organisations to set up thermal power plants and the private sector did not respond to the power needs of the country. This has led to the current pass where demand is much higher than supply, leading to power outages and load shedding. This demand-supply gap became actually apparent in 2007, and two rental power plants were consequently awarded and commissioned the same year. Traditional thermal power plants take between 30-36 months to set up whereas rental power plants can be set up in 6-8 months."
"The Government of Pakistan and Pepco have taken immediate and concrete measures to bridge the demand-supply gap. New state-of-the-art, highly-efficient combined cycle power plants of over 1,700 MW are being set up in the public sector including the 425 MW Nandipur, 525 MW Chichokimalian and 750 MW Guddu power projects."
"Additional IPPs are also coming up on a war footing. Until these projects come online, Pepco is using rental plants as an interim, stopgap measure. Rental power contracts are between 3-5 years." "Rental plants use modern equipment to meet high availability requirements. Inefficient machines do not meet rental contract requirements, " the clarification concluded.
Out staff reporter adds: According to the minutes of the Third Consultative Group on Energy Efficiency and Conservation meeting held on May 14, 2009 at a local hotel, the Pepco representative stated: " ... due to the energy crisis we are now installing most efficient and expensive rental power plants".