Report by Engineering Post
The ongoing unabated population growth and the growing manufacturing industry have highlighted the importance of efficient energy which has emerged as a bigger factor than ever before. Among the different available energy resources the most reliable, cleaner, cheaper renewable energy option for empowering Pakistan was hydropower energy.
The development of hydro power energy projects has become an important part of Pakistan’s energy plan and it was duly being supported through international cooperation like China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which was supporting the ongoing process of industrial development of Pakistan and its commitment to gradually reduce carbon emissions in accordance with the environmental norms,.
For Pakistan, hydropower is a clean solution to the prevailing energy problem facing the country. Hydropower was also on the wheels, for the long-term vision and mission of the country to shift towards clean and green energy sources which was, quite obviously the dire need of the time for saving the environment for the future generations. Investing in hydropower was quite important for Pakistan because the world was shifting to renewable energy source and for Pakistan for fulfilling its obligations of emission cuts under the international climate change agreements including the Paris Agreement, it direly needed to tap the hydropower sources. An important aspect of focus in the great game change CPEC was to do with the energy sector and several big hydel power projects were being planned at the appropriately concerned levels. These projects do answer the current and direct energy requirements of Pakistan while at the same time ensuring the sustainability of energy projects. Through these investments, majority from China, hydropower has quickly fostered large hydropower plant including Dasu Dam that will be soon contributing a large amount of energy to Pakistan’s economy and Diamer Bhasha Dam also with a great potentiality.
The operational hydropower projects include Karot Hydropower Project (720 MW) and Suki Kinari Hydropower project (884 MW). Both these projects were contributing a combined capacity of 1604 MW to the national grid.
Under-construction hydropower projects include Azad Pattan (700.9 MW), Kohala (1124 MW) and Mahi (640 MW). These projects will add a total of 2464.7 MW in the coming years on completion one after the other.
These specific hydropower were being developed under the overall framework of CPEC and the BRI was providing Pakistan with financial and technical support from China.
