Sindh giving special focus to energy sector
KARACHI: Sindh chief minister Murad Shah in his budget speech on Thursday said that we have achieved several targets during current financial year 2017-18 and have set a number of goals for next financial year 2018-19.
\The achievements are Thar Block-II has been progressing well ahead of its timelines both at mining level as well as power plant construction level. He added as of today, 78 percent overburden has been removed. The first seam of the Thar coal would be exposed and available for utilization by the first week of June 2018.
The pre-commissioning tests of the power plant would take place in July 2018 and after grid connectivity and synchronization the first electron from Thar Coal will be added to the national grid by December 2018.The flow of electricity from Thar would usher a new era of development in the country and transform the entire energy sector.
Development of renewable energy is another vital area where Sindh government has put special emphasis. The government has so far allotted 53,600 acres land in different districts for development and production of wind and solar energy and reserved 42,000 acres for new such projects.
The chief minister said that as of today 935 MW electricity is being injected into national grid through wind resources. 300 MW additional power would be available by July 2018f six more wind power projects. He added that he plans to generate 2,485 MW power from wind ad and 1550 Mega Watt solar energy through foreign funding.
He said that he has negotiated and finalized with the World Bank “Sindh Solar Energy Project” for deployment of solar PV technologies in Sindh for $ 105 million. The project would be formally launched from next financial year. The project comprises urban rooftop solar program for Karachi and Hyderabad; village electrification for off-grid areas with an initial target of 200,000 households across Sindh; 50 MW grid connected solar project at Manjhand, Jamshoro district and in-house capacity building.
He also said that Keti Bandar-Gharo-Jhimpir wind corridor has the potential to generate 50,000 MW power but lack of sufficient capacity transmission grid is hampering development of this huge resource.
Sindh is the only province which has established a transmission line company namely Sindh Transmission & Dispatch Company (STDC) for evacuation of 100 MW electric power by constructing 95 Km transmission lines from Nooriabad to Karachi. I hope that STDC will be able to supply additional 2,000 MW wind power to the province in shortest possible time.
Murad Shah said that to tap the potential of coal reserves of Thatta, Jamshoro and Badin districts, Government has established Sindh Lakhra Coal Mining Company (SLCMC) to initiate underground mechanized coal mining to enhance production and recovery of coal. Besides, coal washing plants will be established to improve quality of coal for the use in power generation and industries. An equity of Rs. 695 Million during 2017-18 has been injected to the company for the coal sector development.
Schemes proposed in this sector are particularly about following areas include creating conducive environment through development of physical infrastructure for power generation and mining; building of institutional infrastructure necessary for setting tariff, pricing and other concessions to attract foreign direct investment in Thar Coal; Exploiting the availability of huge reserves of shale gas / oil in Sindh and the wind corridor at Keti Bander and Jhampir for power generation. The wind corridor is 80 km long along the coast and 170 km deep towards land with potential wind power generation capacity of 60,000 MW.
He said the Government of Sindh has already spent billions of rupees to build infrastructure at Thar coalfield. At present, road access, water supply, airport, Reverse Osmosis plants, and other facilities have been completed. However, following works where we need federal government’s support are in pipeline:
Installing transmission line for power evacuation from the Thar field; Constructing railway track for transportation of coal to different power plants and for exporting coal; Exploring indigenous resources at Thar and other fields; and Prioritizing the Thar coal for use in local coal based power plants.
Talking about next financial year, the chief minister said that village electrification and village gasification programs would continue for which Rs.1200 million has been allocated, four schemes for assured water supply for Thar Coal filed at the total cost of Rs.33, 310 million with next year’s allocation of Rs.2530 million will be executed, Rs.7.00 billion has been allocated for 16 on-going development schemes in ADP 2018-19 for development of road infrastructure and water schemes for Thar coal, New schemes will be accommodated under the provision of Rs.50.00 billion earmarked separately as ‘Block Allocation’ for new schemes for all sectors in ADP 2018-19.