Nandipur powerhouse generating zero electricity
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
ISLAMABAD: The high profile Nandipur power project, which Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif inaugurated with pride claiming it was completed in record time of one year, is non-operational for the last four days and generating zero electricity, a senior official at ministry of water and power told The News.
Meanwhile, the long electricity power outages of 15-20 hours continue to haunt the country and there is no letup. The PM inaugurated three powerhouses but they are not giving the required dividends.
Officials of the power ministry in a bid to show their performance and appease the top leadership gave the impression that the first unit of Nandipur of 95 MW is all set to come on stream and got it inaugurated by the prime minister without conducting the reliability test run (RTR). Now the power unit is non-operational. “The baboos have brought embarrassment to the government.”
The estimates, as per the senior official, say the said unit will take 2-3 months’ time for RTR as the allied equipment will be arranged in 3 months.
“Now, the question arises when RTR was not conducted then why the project was inaugurated,” the official maintained.However, a spokesperson of the ministry of water and power insisted that the Nandipur powerhouse is not closed, rather it is experiencing on-again-off again operation. The spokesman could not explain why the project was inaugurated when it has yet to go through tests.
Mentioning the Uch-2 powerhouse, the official said that without erection of the transmission line to transmit the electricity, the project has been started and got inaugurated by the prime minister. As a result, the said project is under-performing and the required output is not being obtained.
Uch-1 of 421 MW and Uch-2 of 401 MW should have generated 800 MW at least, but they are not producing the required electricity just on account of non-availability of transmission lines. The official said another reason hampering the generation from Uch-2 is the non-availability of purified gas.
The first unit of Guddu power project of 747 MW was also inaugurated by the PM without reliability test run which is why some times it generates electricity while at others it does not.The official at NPCC (national power control center) confided to The News that power deficit is hovering over 7000 MW. However the spokesperson said that electricity generation stand sat close to 15,000 MW, but source said that it is just above 14,000 MW.
Nandipur powerhouse generating zero electricity - thenews.com.pk