NEPRA refuses tariff for Sapphire Hydropower’s $400mln project

KARACHI: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has rejected the application of Sapphire Hydropower seeking generation tariff for its 150MW Sharmai Hydropower project.

NEPRA in its determination said, “The feasibility study is incomplete and its quality is also not up to the mark, so an evaluation of the project on the basis of available record may not reflect the true picture of the project from technical and financial aspects.” The regulatory authority said that it was constrained to fully evaluate the project techno-commercially at this stage.

Sapphire Hydropower envisages setting up 150MW run-of-the-river hydropower project at Panjkora River in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with an estimated cost of $400.7 million.

Sapphire filed a petition seeking tariff, but the petition lacked key documents such as power purchaser consent, evacuation certificate and an approved interconnection study; however, the authority admitted the tariff petition subject to submission of the requisite documents during the processing of the petition.

NEPRA also observed that the role of panel of experts (POE) was non-satisfactory and the submitted feasibility study was not in accordance with the stated instructions of the NEPRA approved mechanism for tariff determination of hydropower projects.

“The feasibility report of the project is a fundamental document and the role of panel of experts is crucial and if, panel of experts performs only rudimentary review of this important document without detailed deliberations on the technical and financial aspects of the project, then this may lead to major variation in the detailed design,” NEPRA noted.

NEPRA noted that the company also failed to fulfil the mandatory legal requirements of filing an application for grant of generation license.

Though Pakistan is deficient in oil and gas, it has a vast potential in hydropower, coal, wind, and solar energy resources. It is estimated that Pakistan has hydropower potential of about 60,000MW, only 11 percent of which is utilised for the production of electricity, while the remaining potential remains untapped.

Analysts believe that the share of hydropower could become more than 40 percent and indigenous energy resources as a whole might contribute up to 80 percent in the supply mix for electricity production in Pakistan by the year 2030.