Engineering Post Report
Demand for energy increases due to the expansion of economic activities, population growth and rapid technological change. However, energy supply bottlenecks and reliance on imported fossil fuels can be critical for the economic outlook of any country.
With this context, according to the experts concerned, the federal government has envisioned optimizing the utilization of indigenous energy resources including hydel, solar,wind and Thar coal.
As already reported, during the last financial year, the federal government approved the Framework Guidelines for Fast track Initiatives 2022 for promoting and developing cost-effective local renewable energy sources. Primarily, this framework covers Solar PV Energy Substitution for Expensive Imported fossil Fuels, Solar PV Generation on 11 KV Feeders and Public Buildings Solarization.
The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has destabilized global economies with more devastating consequences on the energy market. However, the federal government’ vision was expected to improve the domestic energy outlook significantly.
With three Thar coal-based power plants added during the last financial year their total installed capacity has by now reached 3300 MW. Furthermore, the installed capacity of six nuclear power plants was now 3560 MW.
As such, from July-March FY202, the total installed capacity and generation of electricity stood at 41050 MW and 94121 GWh respectively. During July-March FY2023 , the installed capacity of hydel, nuclear, renewable and thermal source s stood at 25.8, 8.7, 6.8 and 58.7 percent respectively.
On the other hand, electricity generation from hydel, nuclear, renewables and thermal remained at 28.6,21, 4.2 and 46.2 percent respectively.
Moreover, out of the total electricity consumption of 77745 GWh, household, industrial, agriculture and commercial sectors had consumed 47.2, 28.0, 8.1 and 7.8 percent respectively.
The total demand for petroleum products during the period under report remained at 13.1 million tonnes indicating decline by 21.9 percent, whereas the transport sector alone consumes about 78.5 percent of petroleum products.. As such, the the last fiscal year mainly witnessed a decrease in
demand for motor oil, high-speed diesel and furnace oil comprising about 95 of total demand.
In order to meet this demand, petroleum products and crude oil imports remained at 6118.3 thousand MT and 5858.4 thousand tonnes respectively. On the other hand, the natural gas consumption amounted to around 3267 MMCFD during July-March FY2023 which included 626 MMCFD RLNG,. From total coal consumption of 15416.5 thousand tonnes , power, brick kilns and cement and other sectors consumed 47.3, 21.5 and 31.1 percent respectively.
