ISLAMABAD, Aug 2: The government on Saturday opened tariff bids by nine private sector companies for establishing power projects having a combined generation capacity of 1,500MW. The government proposes to press the plants into service next year.

These bids, invited under the fast-track basis, consisted of two packages: Package A and Package B. The Package A is for IPP projects of 1000 MW cumulative power generation capacity and Package B for rental power projects including barge-mounted plants near Karachi for up to 500 MW of cumulative power generation capacity.

On July 15, all technical bids were opened in the presence of all bidders and media people. A total of nine bids (3,060 MW) were received for Package A whereas for Package B rental projects, three bids totalling 678 MW were received.

A bid evaluation committee, comprising representatives of the ministry of finance, Nepra, Wapda/Pepco and Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB), processed the bids and out of the 12, nine bids were declared as qualified.

Addressing newsmen at the PPIB, Managing Director Fayyaz Elahi said that with the addition of these new projects more than 2,600 MW of power would be added to the national grid by the end of next year.

He said the response for Pakage A was very good as PPIB had received six bids totalling 1550 MW for the category against the required 1000 MW projects. For Package B, he said, the board had received bids for 678MW against the requirement of 500 MW.He said all bids would be evaluated by an evaluation committee strictly in accordance with the criteria laid down by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC).

The tariff given by the parties was not final and it would be approved by the evaluation committee, Mr Elahi said.

He said the evaluation would be completed within four days and recommendations would be submitted to the ECC in its next meeting for approval.

After that, he said, letters of support would be issued to qualified parties for 1000 MW under Package A while for 500 MW, under Package B, letters would be issued by the middle of the current month. He said all these projects were expected to start commercial operations within six to 18 months.

Besides local investors, companies from the United States, Canada, UAE, Turkey and Mauritius took part in the bidding. The IPPs are expected to start their operations by August 2009 and rental projects are expected to start operations by February 2009.