ISLAMABAD - Rental Power Plants were just burden on national kitty and Supreme Court’s verdict will have little or no impact on power supply situation in the country as money being paid to RPPs would be diverted to IPPs to meet shortfall.
RPPs never generated more than 120-megawatt electricity against the capacity of around 1,000 megawatt and the said figure can easily be obtained by providing fuel to idle Independent Power Producers or government owned thermal power plants. The government in the start had approved 17 RPPs but afterwards on the report of Asian Development Bank that there were lapses in the selection process and cost of electricity was not affordable for the country, only 8 RPPS remained intact.
At present 4 out of 8 were adding some power in national grid but that was just burden on the public exchequer as common man unable to pay their price since they are not working to their full capcity.
The 4 operating RPPs include Karkey Power having capacity of 231 megawatt but was only generating 48 megawatt at monthly average, Gulf Eminabad had a capacity of 62 megawatt and was generating 50 megawatt, Naudero-1 installed capacity of 51 MW but adding only 9 MW in grid and Reshma Power of 201 MW was also just generating 14 MW. It is worth mentioning here that Karkey Power Ship was generating electricity at the highest rate of Rs35-50 per unit ever observed. The said power ship had a total capacity of 231 megawatt and had an agreement with government that it will pay total rent whether or not, the electricity is generated. Government used to pay Rs 84 billion monthly to this ship against supplying almost no electricity.
Experts in Nepra and Ministry of Water and Power believed that rental plants are absolutely unnecessary and they could make no difference rather could only increase the cost of electricity for the masses.
The sources said that 120 megawatt could easily be generated thorough IPPs or government owned thermal plants which are at present not operational due to non availability of fuel. The sources also told that power sector’s real issue was financial crunch and not the installed capacity.
If the funds were available, the gap between demand and supply of electricity could be decreased significantly and RPPs were also a factor in creating financial issues for the power sector. The government owns 9 generation companies those had an installed capacity of 3,550 megawatt but they were adding just 1,200 or more in the national grid. The installed capacity of these plants could also be increased to more than 5,000 megawatt by investing $210 million instead of dumping money in rental plants.