The first unit of 450MW of Bin Qasim Power Station 3 (BQPS-III) which was scheduled to be commissioned in November 2021 is facing delays.
The BQPS-III project is of 900MW with two units of 450MW each. But the project is facing delays in initiation of operations due to approvals from the federal government and COVID-19.
Currently, KE is drawing over 1000 MW electricity from the national grid to meet its demand. The government also intends to enhance the quota of KE to over 2000MW by 2022 for which the draft Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) is waiting for approval at the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC). So KE is desperately in need of power before the months of summer but due to travel and freight restrictions imposed during COVID-19 the BQPS-III is facing delays.
During the design phase the project faced a lot of delays on account of unavailability of international design institutes that remained non-operational across the globe resulting in delays during design phases of these power plants.
According to sources the second unit of the project has also been in development phase in parallel, and is expected to become operational in the summer of 2022.
