The federal government has reportedly decided to purchase power from redundant thermal power plants on a "fixed price" basis during the four months of summer without any discrimination, official sources told Business Recorder. "We are advertising in the media that any power generation company which has surplus power should approach the government. We will purchase electricity from those companies at a fixed price with the approval of National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra)," the sources added.
The government will approach Nepra requesting it to fix tariff for furnace oil-fired power plants and gas-fired power plants and whatever tariff is approved by the regulator will be announced in the media, the sources continued. Ministry of Water and Power expects that it will add around 1500 MW electricity to the national grid in summer through 747 MW Guddu Power Plant, 400 MW from the furnace oil-fired Nandipur Power Project, cost of which increased manifold due to a massive miscalculation/mismanagement. The ministry also expects a few hundred megawatts at fixed price policy to be announced during the current month.
"We expect that 1500 MW additional electricity would be added to the national grid in a couple of months which would increase the total generation to 16000-16500 MW," the sources maintained. Though, Ministry of Water and Power is not in a position to forecast demand-supply gap in summer, analysts believe the situation will not significantly improve.
Replying to a question, the sources said the government has billions of rupee damage claims against Southern Electric Power Limited (Sepcol) and Japan Power Company Limited (JPCL), adding that one single officer of Ministry of Water and Power cannot resolve this complicated issue. "It is not possible to get electricity from those power generation companies which have filed cases against the GoP claiming billions of rupees of damages," the sources added.
According to sources, representatives of both companies met with senior officials of the Ministry of Water and Power and expressed their intent to sell electricity to CCPA. The officials of Water and Power Ministry suggested to the representatives of both the companies to bring a feasible proposal for consideration. Both companies have expressed their willingness to sell electricity to CCPA at a lower rate than other companies but are not ready to withdraw cases against the government.
An official told Business Recorder that the two companies tried to pressurise the Ministry of Water and Power through the Senate Standing Committee on Water and Power headed by Senator Zahid Khan but the Ministry boycotted the proceedings of the meeting. The government recently approved on-site power generation policy aimed at getting maxim generation in a short period. However, the policy clearly states that those companies which are in litigation with government are not eligible to take advantage of this policy.