ISLAMABAD - While the country is suffering from long-hours electricity loadshedding, the government has totally ignored two plants that are lying on the port having total capacity of 900MW. Moreover, it is not releasing funds to the Chinese company which is working on extension of Guddu Power Station.
TheNation has reliably learnt that two plants having capacity of 425MW each are waiting for the government’s attention and are still at the port. One of the plants is gifted by the government of United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the other is imported.
The government is also not releasing funds to Chinese company that is working on the extension of Guddu Power Station by installing two plants of total capacity of 747MW. The interesting thing is that these plants are combine circle plants that technically means that gas or fuel has to be provided to one plant and another steam plant can be run using steam generated by the first one that can decrease generation cost of electricity.
In total, the government can reduce power shortfall by 1600 MW by the installation of these plants. The sources said that the reason might be pawing the way for outsourcing government’s thermal units to private sector.
The sources said that Guddu Power Project when installed decades back had a capacity of 1655MW that after depletion over the years remained 1155MW that can be regained by overhauling the plants. Moreover, 747 can be added by releasing the funds to Chinese company that is working on extension of these projects.
The sources revealed that there is no reason for loadshedding in the winter season other than the disinterest and incapability of the government to resolve the issue. They further said that gas shortage in the country might be true but why the government was not running the fuel-based plants.
It is also worth mentioning here that the country in winter season is suffering from 2000MW to 3000MW shortfall that can easily be avoided by taking certain steps. The sources said that in the light of generation capacity details, it is amazing that power shortfall touched 8000 megawatt in summer season as if the resources are well utilized the shortfall can not go beyond 3000 MW even in the season of extreme demand.