ISLAMABAD: As Pakistan energy requirements are increasing rapidly, the government is focused to ensure availability and security of sustainable supply and delivery of energy service along with the development of natural resources and minerals.
According to the Economic Survey Report for Fiscal Year 2018-19, issued on Monday, ensuring energy security with affordability and universal access based on indigenous resources is the goal of the current government, “Pakistan is blessed with enormous hydro and coal potential, which, if carefully exploited, can ensure our future energy security on long -term basis.
Utilizing distributed resources in indigenous capacity while meeting the demands of volatile economic sine curves of growth and development, require a perspective of sustainable energy utility with resilience and adaptive capacity at core and at large,” the survey said.
The Ministry of Energy is tasked with expansion in the capacity of delivering energy, requiring supporting expansion in the transmission infrastructure for evacuation of the power.
The government has encouraged local and foreign investment in the generation, transmission and distribution supply chains of the delivery of service to fuel the economy.
The prime minister formed task force on Energy to propose immediate, medium and long –term policy interventions with the aim to provide indigenous, affordable and sustainable energy for all.
Further, National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) has prepared and submitted Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan (IGCEP) 2018-40 to National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA).
This expansion plan is a part of the Integrated Energy Plan, which will include power, as well as petroleum demand and supply plans until 2047 The plan envisaged transformation of power generation sector from thermal production to renewables and nuclear power.
The immediate focus of the government has remained on reducing the losses and increasing effectiveness of the whole value chain.
Anti -theft campaign with the formation of special task forces in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been launched since 13th October, 2018. Within a short span of 3 months (September to November 2018), 6880 cases were detected resulting in registration of 1441 FIRs with the amount of detection bill charged reaching Rs 267.571 Million. Power Division, Ministry of Energy has given a target to DISCOs to recover Rs 80 billion from old receivables while freezing the receivable figures as they stood on October 31, 2018.
Further, DISCOs have been given a target to recover another Rs 60 billion by controlling theft and improving governance and efficiency. Additionally for our vulnerable farmers agricultural tube well subsidy in Baluchistan has been extended until the end of calendar year 2019 while for the rest of the country the subsidy has been extended at a lesser rate of Rs 5.35 per unit.
As far as reducing losses and increasing effectiveness are concerned, advance technology is to be deployed as a policy measure. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is being launched with the help of $ 400 Million committed for the first phase by Asian Development Bank (ADB). Removing the constraints for efficient transmission, the ministry has identified 40 major areas and has divided the respective work into different phases.
In addition to reducing losses, a massive sum of taxpayer money is being spent on the subsidy of 30,000 tube wells in the province of Baluchistan A feasibility is being undertaken on the prospects of solarization of agri-tube wells thus providing off grid solutions and reducing the burden on taxpayers.
Oil based power generation plants which remained the face of the power sector of Pakistan for over three decades, have been planned to be phased out over the next few years and it is expected that the share of furnace oil -based energy will decline to single digit percentage in the overall energy mix in the coming years. On the other hand, Pakistan has large indigenous coal reserves estimated at over 186 billion tons which are sufficient to meet the energy requirements of the country on long-term basis.
Apart from indigenous coal resources, there has been significant increase in import of coal as well due to commissioning of new power plants based on imported coal at Sahiwal and Port Qasim. However, domestic production of coal is expected to increase in the coming years with projects on Thar coal.
Hydropower plants are considered one of the most capital intensive projects and for a country like Pakistan, it is not possible to undertake such big projects without the financial support of international development agencies.
During July- March FY 2019, installed capacity of electricity reached 34,282 MW, which was 33,433 MW in corresponding period last year, thus, posting a growth of 2.5 percent. Although electricity generation varies due to availability of inputs and other constraints, the generation increased from 82,011 GWh to 84,680 GWh, posting a growth of 2.1 percent during the period under discussion. Pakistan is overcoming a severe energy crisis that has directly and indirectly affected all sectors of the economy especially in terms of the evolving energy -mix.
The energy side bottlenecks have corroded the economy of the country in the past as well. 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 years 2013 -18, adding a cumulative capacity of 12,230 MW.
Although the added capacity has helped ease the bottlenecks at generation side, yet the transmission and distribution side congestion and inefficiencies has hampered the sustained delivery of energy services.
As far as the share of different sources of electricity generation is concerned, it can be observed that the share of hydro in electricity generation has decreased over the last few decades.
Currently, thermal has the largest share in electricity generation. Gas and RLNG are other cheaper sources. RLNG tremendous growth in energy mix has helped supply the demand to various power plants (Bhikki, Haveli Bahadur Shah, Balloki, Halmore, Orient, Rousch, KAPCO, Saif and Sapphire) while, the remaining was supplied to fertilizer plants, industrial and transport sector. As an alternate , the government showed commitment for electricity generation capacity through renewable energy sources.
During July-March FY 2019, there was an increase of 1 per cent in share of renewables in electricity generation, and it is expected that the share will increase in coming years as well .
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