ISLAMABAD: The commissioning of first unit of 450MW of Karachi Electric’s 900MW BQPS-III combined cycle plant due in November 2021, is now expected to start operations in 2022 as delay has been witnessed in some approvals at the level of federal government due to Covid -19, well informed sources told Business Recorder.
Senior officials of KE time and again informed National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) that the first unit of RLNG-based plant will be operational in November 2021. However, at the same time, the officials also shared information about the hurdles beyond their control.
Presently, KE is drawing over 1000 MW electricity from the national grid to meet its demand. The government also intends to enhance the quota of KE to over 2000MW by 2022 for which the draft Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) is waiting for approval at the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC).
K-Electric also stated during Nepra’s hearing that it has recently signed a GSA with Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) for its 900MW BQPS-III RLNG Power plant. Some of the reasons for the delay are attributable to COVID-19 including delays on account of unavailability of international design institutes who work on designing of the power projects. They remained non-operational across the globe resulting in delays during design phases of these power plants. The most dominant impact of all was international travelling restrictions that resulted in continuous unavailability of international field experts, particularly from regions such as Europe, Middle East, the US and China.
When contacted, a spokesperson said: “BQPS-III is a state-of-the-art power project which is commissioning at a very fast pace as compared to power projects of similar magnitude in Pakistan.”
He further stated that KE was committed to bringing the plant at operational stage as soon as possible. However, the biggest hurdle in this regard was the advent of COVID-19 which created travel, as well as, logistics related restrictions not only for Pakistan but also for the entire world.
“The first unit of 450MW is at an advanced stage of testing and commissioning,” the spokesperson maintained.
Regarding operation of BQPS-I (Unit-3), Nepra in its decision of September 15, 2021 in the matter of LPM in the Generation Licence of K-Electric decided “in view of the demand supply situation in the area of KEL and to avoid load shedding during the hot summer months, the Authority considers it was prudent to allow operation of Unit-3 of BQPS-1 for the interim period (i.e., May to August 15, 2021).”
A number of power projects are currently facing delays because of the ongoing pandemic. These projects with a total generation capacity of 4,534MW include 330MW each of Thar Coal Block-II and Thal Nova Coal, 1320MW of Thar Coal Block-II, 884MW Suki-Kinari Hydropower, and 72 MW Karot-Hydropower.
While the advent of Omicron variant of COVID-19 continues to pose a challenge, ease in restrictions pertaining to travel, and logistics has resulted in the resumption of work on these projects at a fast pace.
Sources in K-Electric suggest that the second unit has also been in development phase in parallel, and is expected to become operational in the summer of 2022 provided COVID-19 new variant does not lead to imposition of global freight and travel restrictions.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021