ISLAMABAD: The Board of Investment (BoI) has undertaken steps to establish first-ever solar captive power plant for the SEZs in Pakistan. In this regard, the BoI facilitated signing of a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) between state-owned enterprises including Faisalabad Industrial Estate Development and Management Company (FIEDMC), Power China Jiangxi Electric Power Construction Co Ltd (JEPCC), a subsidiary of Power China and Henan Zhonghui Electric Power Engineering and Consulting Co Ltd (HZEPEC).
Officials in the BoI told BR that the Chinese companies had proposed to set up a Photovoltaic Power Project of 700MW for the two SEZs of FIEDMC namely M3-Industrial City and Allama Iqbal Industrial City.
The provisionally-estimated total investment of the project is USD 630 million; wherein Chinese companies will come as financers and the SEZ developer/FIEDMC could provide land on lease or to be an equity investment partner in the project.
Officials told that the project would be completed in three phases as per the electricity demand of the SEZs.
The FIEDMC will provide the estimated power requirement for both the SEZs, along with the status of infrastructure inside and outside the SEZ for power distribution from the FIEDMC.
It is planned to adopt BOLT (build-own-lease-transfer) cooperation method for the project, which is a first ever BOLT model in Pakistan.
It was under the guidance of the ex-secretary BoI Omer Rasul, who has been now posted as secretary Energy, Power Division, and facilitation of the Project Management Unit of the CPEC Industrial Cooperation in the BoI that this MoU has transpired. Officials said that this MoU would pave way for private SEZs to have their own captive power plants for interruptible, affordable, and sustainable power supply. It is worth mentioning that the SEZ Act 2012 also entitles the SEZs developers to establish their own captive power generation facility. The present government is according priority to solar/alternative energy generation to increase the share of green energy in the overall energy mix.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020