Groping in the dark

Generate energy or return to the Stone Age

AMER SIAL

Pakistan?s installed generation capacity on July 01, 2011 stood at 23,412 megawatts (MW) with an available capacity of 19,669 MW. However, during the last fiscal year the gap between the demand and supply remained over 5,000 MW as Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) managed utilization of only 59.2 percent of its capacity,according to the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority?s State of the Industry Report 2011, attributing the main reason for non utilization of the available capacity to the government?s inability to finance the purchase of furnace oil for the state owned Generation Companies (GENCOs) and private sector Independent Power Producers (IPPs.) The energy quagmire in which ?the country finds itself today results from neglect of the power sector from the top ?priorities and wrong decision?s over the last three decades. These have contributed to create a fuel mix that is 70 percent dependent on the thermal and only 30 percent on hydel and other fuels.

The price of thermal is significantly higher than the hydel, with the latter the most affordable source of energy. Even knowing this the government failed to undertake any mega hydel power project for the last three decades. The only panacea now lies in handing over all the energy issues to one agency, which should be responsible for integrated power planning, development and transmission,and ?to prepare and execute power ?projects in hydel, thermal, renewable energy and those dealing with ?transmission lines.

?Member of the National Assembly Special Committee on Energy Crisis, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, has observed recently during a meeting that the government was at a loss to understand the dynamics of the energy crisis. Since the government was itself confused on the issue, all the explanations and proposed solutions were not likely to work as they have not brought any betterment in the system for the last four years. His observation is quite sound as the planning of the hydel power sector is done by the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), while the concerned ministry, the Ministry of Water and Power has minimal role in the water sector, which basically ?falls in the provincial domain. The role of the federal government in the water?sector comes through the Planning Commission, which approves funding for different projects but lacks the necessary expertise to give a holistic long- term developmental approach and monitoring of the projects and their impact? The labyrinth of mandarins, including the ministries of finance, water and power and petroleum and their allied departments, are all responsible for the intensification of the energy crisis in ?Pakistan. They have failed to ?adopt a joint strategy to be implemented on war footing to come out of the mess. The people have suffered the worst as despite over 100 percent increase in power tariff during the last four years, there are still long blackouts bringing the economy to a halt. Pakistan is losing out nearly?three percent of ?its GDP growth rate because of its power crisis.

Briefing the committee, the WAPDA representatives strongly criticized the under-implementation power sector ?reforms and demanded improvement in governance at distribution companies ?(DISCOs) along with accountability instead of increasing the already too high ?power tariff. The inclusion of provincial governments in DISCO boards was ?stressed to reduce line losses and improve recovery. WAPDA officials ?demanded reassignment to them ?of the role of integrated power planning, development and transmission as ?mandated under the WAPDA Act, to prepare centralized plans for development of ?power in hydel, thermal and renewable energy resources including those dealing ?with transmission lines. The government had started the restructuring of WAPDA, in the early 1990s, with the vision that the break-up of its various departments ?and decentralization will make management more effective. However this has not ?materialized.

WAPDA?s Power Wing was replaced by PEPCO, whose top management ?exercised the same centralized control over DISCOs. WAPDA officials even ?claimed that the issue of circular debt will not get resolved as PEPCO?s ?monthly revenues fall short of its expenditures by Rs 20 billion per month. ?This is unsustainable and the existing revenue gap is solely because of the ?mismanagement and flawed implementation of the reform programme. Criticizing the ?government on its lack of vision, it says by picking up bank loans for filling the revenue ?gap of Rs 300 billion, the government paid tariff differential subsidies of Rs ?470 billion since 2007 to PEPCO. Despite passing on fuel price impact by making ?almost 100 percent tariff increase, the gap between revenue and the cost is still there.

?Renowned energy expert, Arshad H Abbasi notes with concern that the failure to initiate new hydel power ?projects dealt a severe blow to hydropower development and simultaneously increased ?the dependency on natural gas. This led to the fast depletion of the natural gas reserves as people made frantic attempts to dispel the energy crisis. He estimates ?that the country utilizes 1.16 billion cubic feet of gas reserves ?annually to produce ?the amount of energy which could have been produced by one mega dam like Kalabagh.

?He says the depleting ?indigenous reserves of natural gas have plunged the country in a spiral of ?energy crisis as by the mid 1980s, the power sector was reconstructed to ?accommodate the extensive supply of natural gas.

Consequently, natural gas ?displaced other fuel sources to emerge as the dominant source in the ?energy mix. By 2009, its share in the energy supplied stood at 48.03 percent and ?was accounting for 34.3 percent of the electricity generated. The acute dependency on natural gas was fostered by structural changes inspired ?by the government?s policy and plans and consequently led to the rapid depletion of the finite gas ?reserves as well as halting development of the hydropower sector. ?

Former Chairman of ?Indus River System Authority (IRSA) Engineer Fateh Ullah Khan is also ?of the opinion ?that Pakistan needs to develop fast new water ?reservoirs for irrigation ?and hydropower ?as well as to control floods and silting of reservoirs. He says Pakistan needs ?to develop 22 million acre feet (MAF) of water storage on a war footing, as India ?has cunningly acquired the ability to store 38 MAF of live storage on the three ?western rivers allocated to Pakistan that equals the full requirement of country?s ?Rabi crop. He proposes the building of unique 35 MAF multipurpose Katzarah Dam in Skardu to store six times the storage of Bhasha Dam. It will help generate 10,000 MW hydropower, control super floods ?in the Indus , and work as a watershed management dam to prevent silt. It will also increase life of Bhasha Dam from 85 years to 800 years. A ?study conducted by World Bank shows Skardu valley is the source of silt. If Katzarah Dam is built, it will help irrigate about three to four million acres of the ?Kachi plain in Balochistan from Chashma Barrage.

He also proposes ?building of 8.5 MAF multipurpose Guroh Dop Dam ?on Punjkora River to store 3 MAF of its runoff. This will help divert 4 MAF of floodwaters in Guroh Dop Reservoir from Chitral River, through a 22 km tunnel by ?building Mikhani Dam and power generation of 1400 MW. This will also control floods ?in the Kabul River. ?

In a unique substitute ?for Kalabagh Dam, he proposes building 100 feet low dam cum 60 feet barrage ?over it. The site is three miles upstream of the dam in the Indus valley. This ?will help store 3.4 MAF of water repeatedly to be filled as the flow at this ?site is 93 MAF.

The aggregate storage could be between six to nine MAF. The project ?would serve as a balancing reservoir to produce more power at Tarbela and store ?released water at the dam-cum-barrage reservoir. It will produce 2000 to 6000 ?MW of hydropower on the run-of-river with power houses located on both the river ?banks. The royalty would be shared between Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. The project ?will have an indefinite life span and requires no land acquisition, no land ?compensation and no population displacement. ?He stressed carrying ?out of Integrated Comprehensive Water Management of the 165 years old canal ?irrigation system that wastes about 50 MAF of water, is incompatible with ?crop water requirements and is obsolete. The canal system modernization will ?help in saving precious water. He also proposes controlling salinity in the Indus basin ?and reclaiming lands by building surface and sub-surface tile drainage to ?evacuate injurious salts out of the area and thereby maintain the salt and water balance.

?