ERC panel opens bid documents for two IPPs despite delay request

The Energy Regulatory Commission's bid management committee has opened the price-bid documents of the three companies that qualified in the technical round for independent power producers (IPPs), regardless of the plan of the disqualified National Power Supply (NPS) to request a delay in the procedure.

A committee source said it had opened the price documents of Glow Energy, Energy Generating (Egco) and Gulf JP group on Wednesday.

NPS recently asked the ERC to explain why it did not pass the technical round. It also planned to ask the bid committee to delay the price-document opening until the matter was clarified.

The source said the bid committee was waiting to see which channel NPS chooses for submitting its request. If it goes to the ERC, the case is expected to be cleared up in two weeks.

Two tenders

Gulf Energy proposed two tenders to build 2,700-megawatt power plants, while Egco proposed two plants, each with 1,800MW capacity, and Glow plans one 2,200MW and one 1,100MW plant. The bid was open to IPPs with total capacity of 5,400MW.

The ERC earlier disqualified NPS, reasoning that its two proposed IPP projects would require a volume of natural gas that exceeded PTT's supply capacity of 100 million cubic feet per day. NPS argued that by the time its IPP starts producing power, expected in five years' time, PTT would have completed its second-phase gas pipeline extension, which would be able to supply enough gas for NPS's plants.

While the ERC questioned NPS's experience in running major IPPs and its funding source, the company argued that it had previously stated that it would link up with a Chinese business partner with verifiable experience with several natural-gas-powered power plants. Moreover, NPS has established funding sources for the projects.

Latest stories in this category

• Three Thais make the list of Forbes' seventh 'Heroes of..


• Kree Dejchai, William Heinecke, Piriya Krairiksh..


• Briefs


• ERC panel opens bid documents for two IPPs despite..

We Recommend

• Thais 'need to tap into new, social media'


• Good governance advocates yesterday urged the..


• 'White faces' to join Thai Spring


• WEF to lift Myanmar's profile

Comments conditions

Users are solely responsible for their comments.We reserve the right to remove any comment and revoke posting rights for any reason withou prior notice.

Article source: http://www.thethailandlinks.com/2013/06/01/erc-panel-opens-bid-documents-for-two-ipps-despite-delay-request/