LAHORE: Bhikki electricity generation plant, which began producing 720 megawatts in the mid of this month, saw its production tumbling half due to some glitches, sources said on Tuesday, but hoping the restoration in 1st week of May.
On April 19, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif inaugurated the first phase of RLNG- (regasified liquefied natural gas) based Bhikki thermal power plant, near Sheikhupura.
The sources said the plant’s present output stands at 350MW against 720MW and it is likely that it would formally resume full power generation capacity of the first phase in couple of weeks. The Bhikki facility will be the country’s first power plant to run on imported supplies of LNG. It is projected to generate up to 1,180 MW – the equivalent power needed to supply approximately 2.5 million Pakistani homes – once it starts combined cycle operations later this year.
A spokesman of the ministry of water and power confirmed that Bhikki is partially producing power following the closure of one of the turbines.
An information officer associated with the minister of water and power said the trial run of first phase of Bhikki plant continued and it would become functional by the first week of May. Its turbine could not start production due to prolonged test as one of the newly installed turbines faltered before and after its formal inauguration.
The trial run of the first phase was initially expected to be completed in March, but despite several attempts the first two turbines of Bhikki RLNG-based thermal plant could not be connected to national grid.
A senior official of the power transmission company said Bhikki had to be connected to system as power demand soared from mid-April. “And, it was done despite the fact that trial run of the 1st phase could not be completed.” Punjab chief minister, who always takes pride in conceiving and executing this project on fast-track, announced in early February that the prime minister would inaugurate the newly-installed turbine in March. However, there have been some glitches that lead to non-working of new turbines following the successive trappings. Resultantly, the turbines of 1st phase could not be run on consistent basis and failed to fully connect with the national grid even today, sources said.
Punjab chief minister had also announced various dates, on several occasions, regarding the completion of the first phase. On April 15, Punjab chief minister, speaking in Faisalabad, said the plant would start generating electricity from next week. Earlier, addressing members of provincial cabinet on April 4, he said gas-based Bhikki project would start producing 750MW by mid of the current month. State minister for water and power Abid Sher Ali, on April 11, told media that RLNG-based Bhikki power plant was generating 596MW of electricity. He said the plant’s production would shortly increase to 800MW. Despite all these tall claims, the trial-run lingers on and yet to be fully completed.
In spite of the delays and successive tripping of turbines, the completion of 1st phase has been touted as a success story as it is said to be accomplished less than 18 months after the large turnkey project was first announced. It is part of government’s plan to increase power generation by 10,000mw before March, 2018 with a view to ending outages in the country.
