ISLAMABAD - The government is likely to drop off 1,320 MW each Rahim yaar khan coal power plant and Muzaffargarh power plants from the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) portfolio projects, it is learnt reliably here on Sunday.
The Punjab government is wooing the federal government to incorporate these projects under CPEC umbrella project, official source told The Nation. “We don’t have enough coal locally to run the power plants and it is not feasible to operate it with imported one,” the source said.
The Pakistani and Chinese authorities in the last JCC held in China agreed to include hydro power projects, in the northern Indus region, in the CPEC umbrella projects. Hydle is much cleaner and cheaper source of energy and to evaluate the feasibility, a Chinese expert team has already visited northern Indus river and will present its report to both the governments soon, the source said. Since Hydle is more cheaper and cleaner therefore it is more feasible than the coal one.
The Punjab government is planning to construct two coal fired projects with the combined generation capacity of 2,640MW in Rahim Yaar Khan and Muzaffargarh districts of Punjab. Both the projects are part of CPEC projects and Punjab Power Development Board (PPDB) is the supervising agency. For Rahim Yaar Khan Shanghai Electric Power Generation, China Machinery Engineering Corporation/Nishat Power Company is the executing agency.
In the progress review meeting of the CPEC projects, held last month, the Punjab government was pursing the federal government to include the coal projects in the CPEC umbrella projects. The main logic presented by the Punjab government is that India’s share of energy from coal amounts to 70,000MW and Europe generates 60 percent of its energy using coal, and 65 percent electricity generated in the world is generated from coal. However, in reality in the entire world the number of coal-fired power plants in pre-construction stage fell by almost 48 percent in 2016 after several countries, particularly China and India, dropped hundreds of projects. It is pertinent to mention here that earlier in 2016 China has cancelled or put on hold 100s of under construction/planned coal fired projects. Over all, china use of coal is on decline since 2013. Similarly, the United States has shifted to gas, wind and solar as the country has retired 13 gigawatts in 2015. In India, banks have refused to finance the coal fired projects and resultantly the government has to put around dozen coal fired projects on hold.
The source said that beside imported coal the other issue with the coal power projects was that it will need two more dedicated rail line for the transportation of coal from the port. The government is most likely to drop the projects, for the moment, from the CPEC portfolio, the source added.
