LAHORE - The government has waken up, though after four years, and turned its attention to restore the lost capacity of public sector power generation companies, the GENCOs. It established a GENCO Holding Company by appointing Naveed Ismail as CEO, signed an agreement of $51.621 million with USAID to improve the efficiency of four generation companies and sought Chinese cooperation for the rehabilitation of the their power plants.
There are four public sector power generation companies namely, Jamshoro Power Company Limited (GENCO-I) with installed capacity of 1,024MW, Central Power Generation Company Limited (GENCO-II) of 1,690MW, Northern Power Generation Company Limited (GENCO-III) of 1,900MW and Lakhra Power Generation Company Limited (GENCO-IV) with capacity of 50MW. “But, their total installed capacity of 4,664MW has been de-rated to 3,580MW due to aging factor, continuous usage of furnace oil and deferral of major maintenance due to system constraint,” said Ehsan-ul-Majid Khan, the General Manager (Thermal).
He told this scribe that about all the Chinese plants were not working. “Yes, the GENCOs are not being given proper attention by the government as compared to IPPs,” said Ehsan-ul-Majid. It has been learnt that the de-rated capacity of the GENCOs has further been deteriorated due to non-availability of spare parts because of financial constraints and non-availability of natural gas, forcing to operate the units on furnace oil. It merits mentioning here that currently the GENCOs are sharing not more than 1,300MW, about 30 per cent of their de-rated capacity, with the energy basket due to unavailability of fuel and it is one of the major reasons of existing energy crisis.
“Stoppage of gas supply by gas companies resulted forced shutdown of gas turbines and shifting of boilers’ operation on 100 per cent furnace oil firing. Obsolete Chinese technology has less performance. The de-rated capacity of GENCO-1, II, III and IV is 840MW, 1,180MW, 1,530MW, and 30MW against the installed capacity of 1,024MW, 1,690MW, 1,900MW and 50MW respectively,” said the GM. Interestingly, over 80 per cent of Chinese plants at four GENCOs are not generating power for the national grid. The official said that after the government request to China, a team of Chinese engineers recently visited their power plants and are preparing proposals for the maintenance of the plants, he added. “We are shifting some plants on coal to minimise the fuel constrains. We are giving purchase orders of spare parts,” said Khan. He was of the view that had the same attention as on the IPPs been timely put on GENCOs, the situation could have been different.
Informing about the different measures recently adopted to restore the lost capacity of existing power units, the GM held that USAID has extended its cooperation to gain 315MW with an estimated assistance of $51.621m from thermal power station Jamshoro, unit number 5, 7 and 8 of TPS Guddu and units of thermal power station Muzaffargarh.
“We are hopeful that 315MW will be recovered by the end of Dec,” he said, adding since the establishment of GENCO Holding Co, the team is engaged to gear up all the pending maintenance works in different GENCOs and procurement of spare parts.
under FARA USAID and ADB financing.
He was confident in saying that people would witness efficient GENCOs within a year and half.