Provincial Energy Minister, Imtiaz Shaikh told the Sindh Assembly that work has started on a fresh project to generate 4500MW of electricity using indigenous coal from Thar. The cost of the project is about of $100 million. At present, 330 megawatts of electricity being produced from the Thar block 2. Additional 330MW from thar is expected to be added to the national grid by the start of June 2019 taking the total generation up to 660MW.
Pakistan’s oil, gas, and coal reserves are vastly underexploited an estimate suggests that just 1 percent of coal reserves have been proven. Mr Khalid Mansoor CEO (HUBCO) in an essay suggests that Thar has the capability provide a sustainable solution for generating 100,000 MWs for 200 years. Coal meets three key criteria for a sustainable energy source: it is immediately available, it is low-cost, and it can provide an uninterrupted power supply. By contrast, hydro is not always available because riverwater is only available seasonally. Solar and wind, though they should “ideally form a part” of the overall energy mix, cannot support “baseload demand” without the introduction of prohibitively expensive measures. Meanwhile, liquefied natural gas (LNG), which can address baseload demand, generates levelized costs that are double those of coal.
