Engineering Post Report
With summer months fast approaching and almost around the corner, all categories of electricity consumers particularly domestic, commercial and industrial consumers are keeping their fingers crossed and earnestly praying for no load shedding in coming hot months.
Energy is an integral part of the economic order of Pakistan because energy demand and economic growth share a tight bond. Pakistan is in the process of overcoming a severe energy crisis that has both directly and indirectly affected all sectors of the national economy especially in terms of the evolving energy mx. The energy side bottlenecks have survey and certainly eroded the economy of the country.
In order to fix such congestions and bottlenecks for the smooth delivery of energy services, massive projects with great political optics were incorporated to the supply side in between the years 2013-18, adding a cumulative capacity of 12230 MW. Although the added capacity has helped in easing the bottlenecks to a great extent at generation side, yet the transmission and distribution side congestion and inefficiencies continue to hamper the sustained delivery of energy services to all categories of electricity consumers throughout the country. Additionally, the higher energy prices in the current times as well as in the near future, are a bi-product of such aggressive capacity additions during 2013-18.
A Task Force on Energy was formed by the Prime Minister soon after coming into power after July 2018 general election on priority basis to propose immediate, medium, and long-term policy interventions with the aim to provide indigenous , affordable energy for all.
Furthermore, National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) has since prepared and submitted Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan 2018-40 to National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), the electricity regulator.
According to the information available from official sources concerned at the appropriate higher level, this expansion plan is a part of the Integrated Energy Plan which includes power as well as petroleum demand and supply plans until 2047. Such evidence-based policy instruments and documents are quite obviously momentous achievements for the entire power sector of Pakistan. The plan envisaged transformation of power generation sector from thermal production to renewables and nuclear power . In this context, looking ahead until 2047 one can learn a lot from the previous few decades of primary energy supplies and how the energy mix of Pakistan has evolved over time.
Categories of electricity consumers include households, industry, agriculture, transport, power and federal and provincial governments establishments and institutions at various levels.
There are as many as 103 Power sector projects under implementation and varying stages of their implementation and completion throughout the country.
73 projects of Power Division including Generation, Transmission and Distribution Projects has 73 projects are being implemented with an allocation of Rs 74735.827 million, 4 power projects of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission with an allocation of Rs 19, 139.966 million, Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit Baltistan 9 projects with an allocation of Rs 2035.0 million and WAPDA Hydropower Generation 17 projects with an allocation of Rs 120768.352 million under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) of the Federal Government for outgoing financial year 2019-20.
By end-June 2020, power generation capacity of 2611 MW including 688 MW from renewable energy are scheduled hopefully to the added to the power generation which will accordingly increased the existing installed capacity from 34916 MW to 37527 MW from solar, wind, hydel, coal (local) coal (imported) gas, RLNG, oil, bagasse and nuclear sources.
As for apprehensions about load shedding in coming months are concerned, while the federal government is doing its part of obligation to increase power generation from all available sources, all categories of electricity consumers particularly domestic consumers should also exercise restraints to the maximum possible in the usage of electricity to meet their essential requirements and needs and avoiding wastage and unnecessary use of electricity through excessive use of air-conditioners in houses, shops and offices. Such constraints on part of electricity consumers will also help in keep their electricity bills within manageable limits while the federal government on its part is also determined to keep the power tarriff within affordable reach of all electricity consumers.
Quite obviously, one needs two hands to clap— the power producers and the consumers.
