Asia Energy tariff approved

KARACHI: The Pakistan State Oil (PSO) sponsored independent power producer (IPP), Asia Energy Pvt Ltd has been granted a 25-year levelized tariff of Rs6.1449/kWh for its 30MW solar power plant being setup in Punjab with proposed cost of $22 million.

Asia Energy is a subsidiary of Asia Petroleum Limited, and PSO owns 49 percent stake in Asia Petroleum, followed by Ifraavest Limited holding 26 percent; and VECO International and Independent Petroleum Group having 12.5 percent each.

The company will have to achieve financial close within one year from the date of issuance of tariff determination.

Tariff granted to the company will no longer remain applicable, if financial close is not achieved by the company in the given timeline.

The targeted maximum construction period from prescribed date of financial close is 8 months.

The overall power generation capacity of Pakistan at the end of 2018-19 was 35,521MW on the NTDC system and 2,854MW on K-Electric. Against this installed capacity, the power generation was 122,497 GWh, which represents 44 percent average capacity utilisation.

Seasonal variation in hydropower generation, de-rated capacity of the public sector generating units and failure of timely supply of fuels to the IPPs are main causes of low-capacity utilisation.

Due to poor energy mix, most of the country generation is coming from thermal fuel sources including furnace oil and high speed diesel, which results in expensive generation of 12 USD cents /KWh on average.