KARACHI: A Turkish ship carrying rental power plants and scheduled to enter Pakistani waters on Wednesday will be required to undergo environmental checks, among other formalities, before generating electricity for the national grid system, it emerged on Tuesday.
The ship, which is sailing from the Tuzla port, Istanbul, will be initially berthed at the Karachi Port Trust. The incoming plant has a generation capacity of an estimated 220 megawatts.
A coordinator for the Turkish firm Karkey Karadeniz Electrik Uretim A.S., which has been awarded a contract for the establishment and operation of rental power plants on the city’s coastline, told Dawn that the power ship named Kaya Bey is likely to be moored for power generation in the vicinity of the Korangi Thermal Power Plant on Nov 24.
In March, after a public hearing held for environmental clearance for the ship-mounted plants, chairman of Turkish firm Orhan Remzi Karadeniz had said the plants were set to be brought to Pakistan in mid-April 2010.
He had further affirmed that the necessary no-objection certificate (NOC) from the Port Qasim Authority for the berthing of the ship at the project site had been acquired and efforts were afoot to ensure compliance of the country’s environmental laws at every stage and taking necessary environmental impact mitigation measures for a safe power generation.
When contacted by this reporter, the director-general of the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa), Naeem A. Mughal, who had issued an NOC for the power ship project, first of its kind in the country, in April last, said that a Sepa team would undertake scrutiny of the ship and verify the details provided by the proponents of the rental power project. Without Sepa approval, the plant could not operate, he said, adding that though the ship was said to be a state-of-the-art vessel, Sepa’s concerns mainly pertained to marine and air pollution.
He said that since the power plant would be placed in the province, Sepa wanted to ensure that all the system and machines used for power generation worked in conformity with the environmental laws of the country. The proponents are already in line with the conditions of Sepa’s NOC required to observe the World Bank’s set standard for noise level to minimise the possible noise impact of the project on the receptors in the surrounding, he added.
The Turkish firm was notified as the qualified bidder in the award of the contract in September 2008 for the installation, commissioning, maintenance and operation of the barge/ship-mounted power plants at Karachi on a rental basis for five years.
At the public hearing, experts had suggested certain extra facilities to be made available at the ship-mounted plants to address the issues of safe disposal of effluent and solid waste, including hazardous sludge discharge and emission of SOx, NOx, CO2 and CO from the plants.
The conditions as mentioned in Sepa’s NOC impose that the proponent shall ensure that all industrial wastewater, gaseous emission and particulate matters generated due to operation of the ship-mounted power plant are in compliance with the National Environmental Quality Standards notified for the purpose.
“The equipment for the separation of oil and grease from effluent shall be installed on board to prevent the discharge of oil and grease into the sea. Temperature, TSS, and pH of all effluents and gases being released will be controlled through effective equipment and technologies,” the conditions included.
It is further observed in the regulatory conditions that the ship will be located at an optimum distance from the fishing jetty by ensuring that the movement of fishing boats going to and from the jetty should not be affected and for this purpose consultation will be ensured with the local fishermen.
Monitoring of ambient air quality within a radius of 500 metres of the plant shall be conducted on a regular basis for CO, SOx and NOx parameters during operation of the plant in order to observe the incremental impact of the project on air quality. The result shall be provided to Sepa with the monitoring reports.
Natural vegetation of mangroves or any other species will not be destroyed or damaged or removed, and no dredging of the area will be undertaken, except with the approval of Sepa.
Among other dos and don’ts, the NOC called for the submission of an emergency response or contingency plan for any accident on the plant to Sepa, development of a complete code of health, safety and environment and strict adherence to mitigation measures recommended in the EIA report to minimise any negative environmental effect on the ecology of the project area.
The coordinator for the Turkish firm said that on the suggestions of the experts, some technical details in the environmental impact assessment reports had already been added, while all reservations of Sepa would also be addressed properly.
Replying to a question, he said his firm was already operating two power ships in Iraq. The ship being brought into Pakistan was the largest one and could be fuelled with heavy and light oil. The firm intends to bring in another ship for oil storage, the coordinator added.
About the schedule of the ship’s arrival and plant operation, the spokesman said the ship would come to the KPT at its berths 4 and 5 on Nov 18, followed by an on-board ceremony welcoming dignitaries and other concerned persons on Nov 21.
The ship would finally be moored at the rental plant’s operation site near the Ibrahim Hydery union council of Bin Qasim Town on Nov 24. Necessary stringing and interconnection from the delivery point (onboard the ship-mounted plants) to the Korangi grid station and any commercial generation from the plant may take two or three weeks more, the coordinator concluded.