KARACHI: The issue of K-Electric’s two costly power projects to be run on imported fuel has come under the spotlight after Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal has sought information from the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) whether it had asked KE to shelve the projects in view of availability of cheap electricity in the national pool.

Mr Kamal had first raised the issue in November last year when he invited the attention of the power regulator towards KE’s plans to set up a 900 megawatt imported Re-gasified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG) plant and a 700MW imported coal-based power plant despite availability of excess and “relatively cheaper” electricity in the national pool.

He had asked Nepra as to why it was allowing KE to build the expensive new plants “for the net benefit of their foreign shareholders at the expense of the consumers and national economy”.

According to KE website, the first phase of the 900MW RLNG-based power plant is expected to be commissioned in the fourth quarter of financial year 2021, while the commercial operation date of the coal-fired 700MW plant, which is under an IPP structure, is expected in the fourth quarter of FY 2022.

In a follow-up letter addressed to the Nepra chairman earlier this month, the PSP chief said that a recently issued report on independent power producers (IPPs) also agreed with his stance that the KE be disallowed from building the expensive plants in view of availability of cheaper power capacity.

Asks Nepra to save people of Karachi from excessive bills

The former Karachi mayor was referring to the government-mandated report on IPPs that revealed that 16 IPPs invested around Rs60 billion and earned over Rs400bn in profits in a period ranging from two to four years.

In view of the report on IPPs to which a senior official of Nepra was also a part, Mr Kamal asked whether Nepra was going to formally demand the KE to shelve the expensive new projects and work with the power division on a “win-win solution for all parties including the KE consumers and the power sector/economy of Pakistan”.

KE’s power plants’ project was also questioned by its then chairman Ikram Sehgal in a letter dated Oct 21, 2019 which stated: “With surplus electricity available in South of Pakistan the projects are not justified.”

‘Injustices’ of KE with consumers

Meanwhile, Mr Kamal apprised Nepra of the ‘injustices’ of KE with over 20 million consumers of Karachi and parts of Balochistan.

He asked the regulator what steps it had taken so far to eliminate the burden from consumers of an excess amount of Rs9.5bn the KE had been receiving in the head of bad debts.

He expressed the hope that the intervention of the Nepra chairman in the KE’s affairs could save millions of its consumers from excessive bills and unannounced loadshedding. “Being a regulator, innocent KE consumers continue to look forward to your urgent and favourable intervention,” reads his letter.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2020