Karachi: Lack of planning, illogical use of available resources and corruption has brought the power production to a critical stage where no respite from prolonged power outages is seen in near future.
A cursory look at current power production detail shows that not only the government is wasting huge resources on its own inefficient plants but also it ignores gas based IPPs which could provide it cheaper electricity.
Hydel power plants are producing 3919 MWs in total, out of which highest electricity generating plants are Tarbela, Ghazi Barota and Mangla, producing 1901, 1000 and 842 MWs respectively, whereas other plants such as Chashma, Warsak, S.Hydel and Khan Khwar are generating 120, 50, 40 and 7 MWs only using Hydel resources.
Infamous rental power plants which include Reshma, Karkey, Gulf and Naudero plants are producing only 175 MWs in total which is only 4% of the amount IPPs are producing which is 4389 MWs, fulfilling almost half of the demand.
PEPCO’s own Power plants such as Jamshoro, Guddu and Muzaffargarh are contributing to the national grid by generating 225 MW, 927 MW and 180 MW respectively using furnace oil, reportedly these plants are called oil guzzlers and produce electricity through furnace oil with an efficiency rate around 25% whereas power generating capacity of gas based IPPs including Saphire, Orient, Halmore, Saif and SABA stood at nil as on 9th December 2011, as the main resource ‘gas’ is not being provided to them.
Currently, the fuel mix for power sector constitutes of only 30% hydel whereas 70% electricity is produced through the thermal system, which should be the opposite in actual to keep the cost at low levels.
The cost of hydel electricity is almost Rs. 1/kwh, on the other hand gas fuel cost is Rs. 4/Kwh, Furnace oil fuel cost is about Rs. 12/kwh and the diesel based cost is around Rs. 16/kwh.
Sources said that at a time when the canal closure is around the corner and majority of power production will be done through furnace oil and gas based plants, the PEPCO has not even raised demand of supplying uninterrupted gas to the plants which could produce cheaper electricity helping PEPCO to bring down average power producing cost.
Sources said that total output from PEPCO Gencos was1332MWs total power production coming into system from IPPs was  4389 MWs while hydel sources have started to reduce power supply and this morning a total of 3920 MWs were obtained from Hydel sources making a total of 9820 MWs coming into national grid from all sources.
The source said that inefficient planning and wasteful distribution of funds could be gauged from the fact that after doling out billion of rupees on rental power plants, this morning the total power generated from rental sector was RESHMA 66 MW; KARKEY 26 MW; GULF 62 MW; and NAUDERO 21 MW.
The dependence on furnace oil based IPPs, sources said will be increased and PEPCO will be looking towards IPPs during next 2-3 months when hydel capacity as per weather condition reduces. However sources said that PEPCO doesn’t enjoy very cordial relation with the IPPs as most of them are at loggerhead with PEPCO due to ever increasing overdue amount.
Many IPPs had invoked sovereign guarantee twice, first four IPPs had to invoke guarantee from the GoP for the amount of Rs. 10 billion whereas just four months later, 9 IPPs issued notice to invoke the guarantee if their dues of Rs. 46 billion were not cleared.
Though those dues were cleared after the notice but the government still doesn’t have any mechanism to control this ongoing crisis as a huge amount was already due when the earlier debt was paid off.
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