Energy crisis may conditionally end by 2018: experts

[Muhammad Omar]

Pakistan’s energy planners and managers, industry representatives and energy specialists analysed the government’s performance in power sector at an Institute of Policy Studies’ seminar and said that Pakistan’s energy crisis could possibly be controlled by early 2018 if all the implementation schedules of the 2013 energy policy strategic framework were duly met.

Such occurrence, however, would still be a temporary solution as the government’s most measures lack far-sighted all-round approach which was critical for good governance and institutional growth and performance, they viewed.

The seminar titled “Government’s Performance in Power Sector: A Mid-Term Review” held on Wednesday was addressed mainly by Ashfaq Mahmood, former secretary water and power, Syed Akhtar Ali, member (energy), planning commission of Pakistan, Abu Bakar Madni, additional secretary department of energy, government of Sindh.

The programme was chaired by Mirza Hamid Hasan, former secretary water and power and chairman, who is also member of IPS-National Academic Council and chairman of its ‘Tawanai’ (energy) programme. A number of stakeholders, government officials and experts attended the seminar.

Ashfaq Mahmood critically evaluated the government’s performance in comparison with its strategic framework in 2013 policy in detail. He said while the government’s primary target was the elimination of load shedding, its policies were also inclusive of other important areas such as power generation, distribution, theft control, revenue collection, transparency, accountability and customer care. While the government was somewhat successful in reducing load shedding, it could not find a sustainable resolve unless it pays heed to other mentioned areas as well, he opined.

For achieving the target of eliminating load shedding by 2017, the present government had aimed at improving the performance of existing GENCOs, however, it was still abysmal. A report issued by the NEPRA claimed that the efficiencies of generation plants in public sector had declined by 11 percent to 36 percent of their design efficiencies and distribution losses were in the range of 9.47 per cent to 33.40 per cent of the electricity received, he informed.

None of the DISCOs met the target set by NEPRA in 2013-14 while in some of the better rated DISCOs, namely FESCO, GEPCO, LESCO and IESCO, the losses even showed increase over the previous year in sharp contrast to NEPRA’s requirement to reduce losses, he added.

 

[Arsalan mehmud]

gud news..

 

[xyxmt]

what is the condition...if people use half of electricity they are using now?

 

[CrazyRaju]

What an idiotic statement.. When one does not know the potential demand that may exist if there is power available then how do they end the crisis? They may solve energy crisis with reference to a perceived demand. But as energy becomes available consumption will rapidly raise so there no solving crisis until the country becomes developed and supply and demand comes to an equilibrium.

 

[Fracker]

From 8k to 16k MW generation is big jump but same time demand also grew from 14k to 22k MW. There is no final wording what will be the demand in 2018, since the more you have it you consume even more. Also supply lines requires an upgrade as well. Soon a point will come when generation will not be a problem but transmission lines will be. Government have to be intelligent in tackling both issues and same time should also cover land losses, stealing problem to accommodate the mass.

Never the less government did commendable job on this problem, but more work is required.

 

[ghazi52]

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[Talwar e Pakistan]

From 8k to 16k MW generation is big jump but same time demand also grew from 14k to 22k MW. There is no final wording what will be the demand in 2018, since the more you have it you consume even more. Also supply lines requires an upgrade as well. Soon a point will come when generation will not be a problem but transmission lines will be. Government have to be intelligent in tackling both issues and same time should also cover land losses, stealing problem to accommodate the mass.

Never the less government did commendable job on this problem, but more work is required.

Electricity production will double again.

What an idiotic statement.. When one does not know the potential demand that may exist if there is power available then how do they end the crisis? They may solve energy crisis with reference to a perceived demand. But as energy becomes available consumption will rapidly raise so there no solving crisis until the country becomes developed and supply and demand comes to an equilibrium.

Production is growing at a faster pace than demand.

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

But solar panels.. Screw the government!

 

[tsinga]

Soon a point will come when generation will not be a problem but transmission lines will be.

We are facing this problem since the last couple of years. Technically India is now a power surplus state now, but all extra electricity from one region cannot be wheeled to another region(some can, not all) because no Govt invested in distribution system and it has limited capacity..along with that if there is some fault, the grid collapses.

Fortunately, for the last 1 year, there has been massive investment in grid infrastructure by GoI..and by the end of 2020, there should be overcapacity in the grid, rather than under capacity.

 

[Imtiaz_Sarwar]

I am looking forward to the day when Pakistan will have power surplus. Untill then it is UPS and spare LED torches when load shedding occurs.