As Pakistan successfully launched its third power plant with capacity of 330MW on indigenous Thar coal, the newly inaugurated coal power plant is lighting up villages, creating jobs and cutting the cost of fuel imports, Gwadar Pro reported on Thursday. To decrease reliance on expensive imported fuels for electricity production, the Thar Energy Limited (TEL) power plant, under CPEC Block II completed by Hubco company in the district of Tharparkar, has been made operational and was inaugurated by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto.

The Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone of the railway line project to connect the Thar Coal Power projects. According to Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah, by the end of this year, the production capacity of the power plant is expected to reach 2,640 megawatts.  The Sindh CM also claimed that Thar's coal-fired power generation will benefit the national exchequer by $2 billion by the end of 2022. Around 12,500-gigawatt electricity from Thar coal has been added to the national grid, hence bringing down the production cost of electricity to Rs17 per kWh compared to the Rs24per kWh electricity produced by LNG, and Rs37 per kWh from imported coal. “

Thar Coal Block II spends 2 per cent of its profits on social development in Thar district, employing at least 3,303 people from the region including women”, stated the minister. He added that there is also a scholarship worth Rs75 million on vocational training and 23 schools were established under the project. A hospital with a 120-bed capacity has also been constructed under the project, where hundreds will be able to receive daily medical treatment. The coal-fired, mine-mouth power plant of 330 megawatts is owned by Thar Energy Ltd — which is a subsidiary of the Hub Power Company Ltd (Hubco) with a 60 per cent shareholding. The country’s oldest and largest independent power producer (IPP), Hubco will now have collective power generation capacity of 3,251MW with power plants in Baluchistan, Punjab, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Sindh.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP