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'Conservation' noises again
Urban/urbaneFriday, April 23, 2010
Ahmad Rafay Alam
The present energy crisis didn't just show up out of the blue. It has been expected for years. With riots breaking out against load-shedding, the federal government finally did something about the matter: It held a two-day conference.
The conference produced the regular noises about the need to do something. Blame for inaction was placed on the shoulders of the Musharraf government. The failure to undertake the Kalabagh Dam project was lamented. And so on.
Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif presented his nine-point plan to get the country out of the grips of load-shedding. Highlights included banning billboards, exploiting coal reserves, allowing sugar barons to burn their bagasse and the euphemistic "launch" of a countrywide campaign to conserve energy.
Getting Pakistan out of its energy crisis, and fast, requires vision and determination. As the population is expected to rise to over 250 million in another three decades, as we continue in our efforts to industrialise and to lead Pakistan down the road to development, we are going to need far more than the 20,000 MW or so of electricity-generating capacity we currently possess (though levels of generation are much lower). In fact, the Planning Commission has suggested that, by 2030, we will need something in the region of 160,000 MW of electricity capacity. Pakistan's energy crisis is not just something that exists in the now: it is a crisis that will remain with us like a curse and, unless properly managed and controlled, will plague future generations.
In this backdrop, the need for energy conservation is just as important as the ability to woo the investment needed to build additional energy capacity. Energy conservation efforts in Pakistan are mere gesturing. They do not amount to actual conservation. Forcibly closing commercial activity at 9 p.m. only harms the retail economy. Not having government air-conditioners run before 11 a.m. is amusing, at best, and turning off roadside lights not only makes driving dangerous, it's in ignorance of the fact that overall energy consumed by roadside lights is but a fraction of overall energy consumed.
Some basic facts: Approximately 20 percent of all electricity produced in Pakistan is lost because of an old and inefficient transmission system. Most of Pakistan's electricity is consumed in its cities. Household consumption hovers at just over 40 percent of electricity produced, but in the last decade overall household consumption has also doubled. This is because of all the new televisions, air-conditions, refrigerators people bought and installed and which load-shedding has transformed into expensive decorative pieces. Over 35 percent of Pakistan's 170 million live in urban areas now. By 2030, over 50 percent of an expected 250 million will live and consume electricity in urban areas.
Clearly, conservation efforts must go beyond turning to energy-savers and fixing the air-conditioner's thermostat to 26 degrees Celsius.
The energy-transmission grid needs to be replaced. Building new power plants will amount to nothing in the face of an old, expensive and inefficient system of distribution. Replacing the grid is impossibly expensive, but so is the political cost of failing to provide for the people. Conservation efforts must include debate on how to go about improving the grid system.
The household sector the largest consumer of electricity must be made energy-efficient. Buildings will have to be designed to accommodate for our natural climate. People seem to have forgotten that the air-conditioner didn't exist until a few decades ago. The Lahore Resolution was not passed in the ballroom of some air-conditioned hotel. The assembly hall where Mohammad Ali Jinnah delivered his address to Pakistan's Constituent Assembly didn't have an HVAC system.
Architects will have to be told they can't continue building energy-guzzling houses. Conservation efforts must include a re-examination of our urban planning paradigm. Simply too much energy is wasted in buildings made of brick, cement, and too many windows for our energy resources to consistently provide for. A whole building design code has to be thought up that will ensure that buildings consume the least amount of electricity and water that technology allows. A certification system for building energy efficiency has to be put into place before the government can seriously think of regulating energy consumption. The vocational skills of the construction industry will have to be improved so that, from the ground up, our buildings are designed in an energy- efficient and sustainable way.
The industrial sector will have to be cracked down upon. As things stand, the tariff for the consumption of electricity by industry feeds the subsidy that household consumers enjoy, despite their energy-inefficient ways. Government is being naive if it thinks it can enforce expensive energy conservation on industrial (or commercial) consumers. Conservation efforts must include cost-effective means of allowing commerce and industry to invest in new and clean technology.
If most of Pakistan's electricity is consumed by the household sector in urban areas, then urban Pakistanis must also understand their role in the current energy crisis. It is our energy-inefficient lifestyles that is, in many ways, the root of the present energy crisis. Urban Pakistan continues to demand automobile-dependant urban sprawl. Conservation efforts must address our lifestyles and challenge us to improve ourselves for the sake our country and countrymen. And this is where leadership is so important. It will simply not do for the political and bureaucratic elite to rely on electricity from generators when the rest of the nation is quite literally simmering. If there is one act of energy conservation I want to see, it's that the prime minister and the chief minister of Punjab have the generators in their private residences removed.
The energy sector also accounts for approximately 35 percent of the oil imported and consumed in Pakistan. Energy conservation efforts can also have a role in reducing our import bill (and doing away with the billion-dollar oil "facilities" from the Saudi government).
Clearly, energy conservation efforts have to go beyond turning the air-conditioner's thermostat to 26 degrees Celsius. But with the noises that came out of the two-day conference, this will probably not happen. Energy conservation is, pound for pound, the largest single source of energy Pakistan has. It does not require foreign investment. It requires a change from the inside.
The writer is an advocate of the high court and a member of the adjunct faculty at LUMS. He has an interest in urban planning. Email: ralam@nexlinx.net.pk
