The growing energy demand of 8.8 percent indicates that the country's overall power demand will reach 36,000 MW by 2015 and a staggering 114,000 MW by 2030 which required concerted efforts to attract investment for meeting the challenge.
The government has been asked to pursue a diversified programme focusing on domestic energy resources (mainly hydro and coal), efficiency improvement, conservation as well as electricity import to meet the growing energy demand.
Total power generation during 2005-09 increased at a compound annual growth rate of 1.73 percent and hydel generation by 2 percent only was revealed in a study on power sector carried out by the IGI Securities hired by the Planning Commission of Pakistan for giving an overview of power sector.
The study pointed out that compared to FY06 the overall hydel generation slipped by 3.44 percent. Hydel generation has been cyclical in nature with peak generation during July-September (6,580MW) and lowest during January-February (3,930MW). The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) and Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) are both generating below their 2005 capacity, depicting a decline of 3.15 percent and 2.93 percent, respectively.
Similarly, electricity generation from nuclear sources has decreased by 12.78 percent in the last 5 years. As a consequence, overall supply of the country remained stagnant at a time when demand surged in excess of 6 percent.
The current generation capacity remains skewed towards thermal with 65.8 percent share, followed by hydel 31.9 percent. Nuclear energy is capable of producing only 2.3 percent of total electricity generation mix.
The ratio of oil/gas in the generation mix which stood at 24:74 back in FY05 rose to 47:52 in 2009 and higher share of oil in the overall generation has invariably resulted in higher costs per kWh production.
The government response to power crisis has been focused ie on the addition to capacity mainly through oil-based rental power plants (RPPs), expediting processing of independent power projects (IPPs) in the pipeline and developing a portfolio of new IPPs through competitive bidding.
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