KARACHI, April 7: The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation prefers purchase of costlier electricity from independent power producers to self-generation at much less expense.
Well-placed sources told Dawn on Thursday that the two independent power producers the KESC purchased electricity from — Tapal Energy and Gul Ahmed Energy — sold power units at rates much higher than the rates at which the power utility generated electricity on its own at its power plants, such as the Bin Qasim power plant.
“The KESC generates electricity at its power plants at acost of Rs3.2 per unit. The Karachi Nuclear Power Plant sells electricity to the KESC at Rs3.09 per unit. The Water and Power Development Authority sells electricity to the KESC at Rs3.64 per unit. The Tapal Energy sells electricity to the KESC at Rs4.81 per unit and the Gul Ahmed Energy sells electricity to the power utility at Rs4.82 per unit.”
The sources added that the electricity tariff at which the independent power producers sold electricity to the KESC was at least 1.6 times the cost at which the power utility generated electricity at its power plants at SITE, Korangi and Bin Qasim.
Insiders told Dawn that under an agreement signed with the independent power producers, even if the KESC did not purchase electricity from them it would be obligated to pay 60 per cent of the per unit cost as capacity charges to Tapal Energy and Gul Ahmed Energy.
“At the time of inviting the independent power producers to the country the government had given some sovereign guarantees to assure them that their profitability would not dwindle under any circumstances,” KESC officials explained, adding that if such attractive guarantees had not been made — even at the expense of consumers — the independent power producers might not have invested in the country.
They recalled that last year the KESC had purchased electricity worth Rs757,068 from the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant, Rs5.8 million from the Water and Power Development Authority, Rs255,338 from the Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation, Rs3.3 million from the Tapal Energy and Rs3.7 million from the Gul Ahmed Energy.
They explained that under an agreement signed with the independent power producers, the KESC purchased 125 megawatts each from the Tapal Energy and Gul Ahmed Energy every day.
“The installed capacity of the KESC power plants was 1,260 megawatts but the power actually generated by them ranged between 900 megawatts and 1,000 megawatts. The Karachi Nuclear Power Plant sent 60-70 megawatts to the KESC. The Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation came up with only 10 megawatts. The gap between power supply and power demand in the city is usually plugged by the Water and Power Development Authority.”
KESC officials said that recently the government had allowed the completion of a KESC-Hubco direct transmission link project. The project, when completed, would ensure availability of 1200 megawatts of power generated by Hubco on the disposal of the KESC. Currently, the KESC had to import the required amount of power from Wapda’s national grid at Jamshoro and the power generated by Hubco was also transmitted to Jamshoro grid station which was about 175 kilometres off Karachi. With the completion of the direct link between Hubco and the KESC, the transmission distance would shrink from 175 kilometres to mere 30 kilometres. The project, besides saving the transmission losses, would save the KESC from tripping of its system whenever the transmission of Wapda tripped.
They added that the local component of the project cost would be borne by Wapda and the KESC whereas the foreign component of the cost would be met by Hubco.