Jamshoro Power Plant faces technical, environmental hurdles in coal switch: experts

KARACHI: A $545 million-dollar power plant in Sindh, financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), faces technical and environmental hurdles as it seeks to switch from imported coal to local coal, officials and experts said on Saturday.

The 660-megawatt Jamshoro Power Plant is yet to start its commercial operations despite the completion of all engineering, procurement, installation and civil works. Pakistan's Water & Power Development Authority owns the powrer plant.

K-Electric (KE), the sole power distributor in Karachi, the country's largest city, had approached the government with a proposal to convert the plant from imported coal to indigenous Thar coal for the next 30 years, hoping to reduce costs and dependence on foreign exchange.

However, the conversion involves redesigning the plant and addressing environmental issues, which could delay the project and increase its expenses, energy experts said. They agreed that imported coal is expensive and requires foreign exchange and also doesn't look like a feasible option because the government is apparently keen to go for local fuel due to the tight foreign exchange reserves situation.

"First of all, the conversion from imported coal to Thar requires a new feasibility study to approve a new PC 1 as both are highly different from each other, " said Muhammad Abdul Rafay, an expert in legal matters related to energy sector. He said that the funding for the project came from the ADB and the funding condition required that the plant would run on 80 percent imported coal and 20 percent local coal. "How will its permission be taken from the ADB to switch over the plant to Thar coal fully?" Rafay asked.

Rafay also noted that the conversion would require more coal than the imported one as the calorific value of imported coal is much higher than the Thar coal. “If one tonne of imported coal generates one megawatt of power, the same generation would need two tonnes of Thar coal.” He added that the conversion would be a disaster for the environment as local coal's emissions are higher than the imported coal. "For pollution control, authorities need equipment and plants to save the environment as well as to treat the waste water from the burning of local coal."

The conversion would require more coal from the coalfields in Thar, which have been facing complaints from the local population about the pollution of water and the environmental degradation, Rafay said. As per old designs, the electricity to be generated from it was planned to be put in the national grid but KE wants to take this on its own system.

“How will it be done when the power plant is almost completed and NTDC has contracts with the supplier companies? How will the electricity be shifted to KE and whether its approval has been obtained?" he questioned.

Rafay noted that under the National Electricity Plan, the Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB) had to undertake a study on the conversion of plants from imported coal to local coal, which has not been done yet. "In the absence of this study, how will it be possible?"

He, however, clarified that the state should now move on to and invest in renewable energy as it is cheaper, cleaner and in abundance. "Relying on coal will either be costly or highly polluted," he said.

On the other hand, Shan Ashary, Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Al-Jomaih and a director at KE, favored the Thar coal for the plant.

Expressing his views to The News after meeting a group of journalists, Ashary said that Pakistan's footprint in the emission of CO2 gases is almost negligible.

He said that he strongly advocates for the environment, but the availability of the internal fuel i.e. Thar coal in the case of Pakistan should also be considered. "It is the cheapest available fuel along with hydel in the country, which needs to be developed."

Ashary said that technically Jamshoro Power plant has to be redesigned and economic study would determine whether should be redesigned for local coal or not.