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Loadshedding to end-2017 PM ..After failing in past a new promise .. LOL

You cannot expect everything soon. It nowhere says that PM has promised that load shedding will end in 2017-2018. Be patient my friends. At least he is doing something if you compare him to Zordari.
 
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I am not well versed with the mechanics and you maybe right about the scenario. Pakistan need to upgrade the grid system anyway so why not upgrade it to bi-directional? Make it bi-directional at city level so less infrastructure will require upgrade. Start with one city/district. Allow private investors to do this. I want people to take initiatives at city level to tackle this power outage problem.
I totally agree with that combined cycle will be the best way to tackle this problem hence the suggestion that private/public/community projects can be initiated to generate power for the city/district. The savings will be immense as a combined cycle thermal efficiency alone will save so much money in imports of oil/gas.
One doesn't even need 4kW PV array. I am aware that there are losses and power produced is not 4kW (many factors at work). But the aim of this project will be to help the power generation at micro level with minimum investment from the government.

Do you have an idea of how much a bi-directional grid upgrade will cost?
How much will a combined cycle power plant will cost to build? (per MW)

As you wish.

Upgrading a grid to become a smart bidirectional one is more complex than you think. The substations, switch dispatch and control systems all have to be upgraded. It depends on what is the current equipment being used, the topography of network and so many other things. In one word it is not cheap. Even many very rich Western countries think alot and hard when they upgrade to such systems and even then often they do it to save the pandas and not for its economic benefits.

Similarly the cost of building a combined cycle plant depends on alot of things like the capacity, whether you are building the plant near a river or in desert (plant needs water for cooling and for its steam cycle), and even which company is building it. Usually foreign companies are expensive as they have to be paid in dollars which leave your country putting pressure on the country's foreign reserves while a local company building a plant can do it cheaper and mostly in your own national currency with added benefit that the money does not leave your economy.

Here are two comparisons:

425 MW built at the cost of 574 million dollars by the Chinese company DFEC: Nandipur Power Project - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

484 MW built at the cost of 5000 billion Rials (approximately 450 million dollars) by the Iranian company MAPNA: نیروگاه زواره - ویکی‌پدیا، دانشنامهٔ آزاد
 
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Even though im a pti supporter i have to say i feel that nawaz would fulfill this promise and would end loadshedding. I wont give all of the credit to him though as the chinese are investing but if we compare him to ppp then he is doing a great job. I think its time we support our pm.


If I had the power, I'd give you two positive ratings. Finally!!!! Someone stood up and said the right thing. It is time to look beyond personal politics (specially online when the whole world is reading), and time to support the system of Pakistan. Which means, no matter who's in the power, you show support for their good work!! Good job man. Wish there were more who can clear up the fog in their brain and show the world a united nation vs. an always divided country based on people's individual agendas, and never a nation!
 
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If you listened to his inauguration speech he said that overcoming the power shortage is not an easy task and we wont be able to overcome this problem in months but in years. Dont quote what SS said, he is just the CM of Punjab. You have to be a real idiot to even believe anyone could fix power problem in 6 months.
 
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Upgrading a grid to become a smart bidirectional one is more complex than you think. The substations, switch dispatch and control systems all have to be upgraded. It depends on what is the current equipment being used, the topography of network and so many other things. In one word it is not cheap. Even many very rich Western countries think alot and hard when they upgrade to such systems and even then often they do it to save the pandas and not for its economic benefits.
Fair enough.

Similarly the cost of building a combined cycle plant depends on alot of things like the capacity, whether you are building the plant near a river or in desert (plant needs water for cooling and for its steam cycle), and even which company is building it. Usually foreign companies are expensive as they have to be paid in dollars which leave your country putting pressure on the country's foreign reserves while a local company building a plant can do it cheaper and mostly in your own national currency with added benefit that the money does not leave your economy.

Pakistan has a vast network of canal system and some of them run all year around. If a CC power plant is set up near a canal, would it be feasible? Say if the per MW cost is $1 million then it is easier to calculate the cost.
You may have mentioned before cooling from heat. So I am thinking cold storage units can be set up beside each power plant to use the waste heat from the power plants. This will further increase the thermal efficiency of the power plant. Cold storages can be used to store fruits and vegetables etc. It will also reduce the water needed for the whole operation? (I am not sure how much water is needed per MW of power produced). These can be community projects or even private/public partnerships. The opportunities are endless.

I will totally agree with the idea of producing everything nationally but not sure how long will that take to set up the industry.
 
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Fair enough.



Pakistan has a vast network of canal system and some of them run all year around. If a CC power plant is set up near a canal, would it be feasible? Say if the per MW cost is $1 million then it is easier to calculate the cost.
You may have mentioned before cooling from heat. So I am thinking cold storage units can be set up beside each power plant to use the waste heat from the power plants. This will further increase the thermal efficiency of the power plant. Cold storages can be used to store fruits and vegetables etc. It will also reduce the water needed for the whole operation? (I am not sure how much water is needed per MW of power produced). These can be community projects or even private/public partnerships. The opportunities are endless.

I will totally agree with the idea of producing everything nationally but not sure how long will that take to set up the industry.

Yes. For a large combined cycle even a couple bore wells can do it if you are using a dry air cooling circuit. But this will increase the cost. This explains it and gives you some estimates: How it Works: Water for Power Plant Cooling | Union of Concerned Scientists

If you add cold storage, the efficiency of the plant increases as I mentioned before. Basically it will become a trigeneration system which can have a very high efficiency. But I see your point. Such cold storage plants can become economic multipliers in an agricultural country like Pakistan. Another use for the waste heat from the plant can be in food processing or in powering greenhouses during winter. Such systems already exist and are called trigeneation. The ones produce no cooling are called cogeneration system. But both are really extensions of gas turbine and combined cycle. This is the core technology.

Only small plants can become community projects (100's of KW's to a few MW's). Since the big plants cost hundreds of millions of dollars and power up a whole city. For these GW range plants you will need very serious and heavy weight private investors or the government to implement them.

For communities a trigeneration solution is called an integrated energy system since it takes care of all the needs: electricity, cooling and heating.

To produce these internally, you will have to buy the technology. The only viable way I can see for Pakistan is to create a commercial company under the command of Pakistan military and buy the technology and manufacturing facility for it. Since I do not think Pakistan civilian government is competent enough to be able to run such a project.

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Since Pakistan has a harsh summer and air conditioning is critical, trigeneration seems to be the best solution. It is wasteful to use electricity to aircondition buildings or to power cold storage. The most efficient way would be trigeneration. Community level trigeneration would also mean that you do not need to upgrade transmission lines since you consume electricity, heat and cooling onsite.


A high quality 90% efficient trigeneration system that produces 1 MW of electricity and 125 tons of refrigeration (equivalent to about 125 split AC's) plus hot water would cost under a million dollar. It can power 125 homes each consuming 8 KW of electricity (above the middle class living standard), as well as provide them with cooling worth of a single split AC and hot water. So these 125 homes will not need to use the grid and do not need to have AC units (since cooling comes in the form of chilled water) or any water boilers (hot water coming from plant).

The community can save money not only in terms of cheap electricity (cheaper than solar, wind, diesel or even grid) but also do not need to buy and own electricity run air conditioners and water boilers. They basically just pay a bargain for electricity and get air conditioning and hot water for free.

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Only small plants can become community projects (100's of KW's to a few MW's). Since the big plants cost hundreds of millions of dollars and power up a whole city. For these GW range plants you will need very serious and heavy weight private investors or the government to implement them
Yes that is the thinking behind the community projects as it could serve a small town within a city. For bigger projects I would favour Public/Private partnership but with the same core principle of installing a Trigeneration system.

To produce these internally, you will have to buy the technology. The only viable way I can see for Pakistan is to create a commercial company under the command of Pakistan military and buy the technology and manufacturing facility for it. Since I do not think Pakistan civilian government is competent enough to be able to run such a project.
Yes but this could take years to set up and you know there are very few visionaries in a military due to the way they are trained! Totally agree with civilian government of not being competent enough. Maybe private investors? either way it will employ people and produce end product from raw material at home.

Since Pakistan has a harsh summer and air conditioning is critical, trigeneration seems to be the best solution. It is wasteful to use electricity to aircondition buildings or to power cold storage. The most efficient way would be trigeneration. Community level trigeneration would also mean that you do not need to upgrade transmission lines since you consume electricity, heat and cooling onsite
Yes I have been thinking about this for other industries such as food processing etc.

The community can save money not only in terms of cheap electricity (cheaper than solar, wind, diesel or even grid) but also do not need to buy and own electricity run air conditioners and water boilers. They basically just pay a bargain for electricity and get air conditioning and hot water for free
Exactly. Your last diagram shows power and heat utilization but it does not have the combined cycle power plant? Any reason why not?

I see one big problem with this whole concept which is the availability of gas. Pakistan is running out of the its natural gas reserves. So this will need to be imported from countries such as Iran, ME or central Asia. Can we do a rough calculation that how much gas will be needed if multiple such trigeneration power stations are setup in each city? I am thinking depending on the demographic, a city could have at least four of these facilities?

It will take 30 years. This is not an overnight job.
No one is saying the problem will be solved overnight. The successive governments since the 80s failed to plan for the growing population, water, power and other necessities. So it will take decades to catch up and with growing population it may take much longer than 30 years. Diminishing resources would only exacerbate the situation.
 
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Lots of fake promises were made in the past & these fake promises will never end, as Pakistan is ruled by corrupt & incompetent politicians.

No Kalabagh dam, no Bhasha dam, no Thar coal power project, no Nuclear energy project & etc. I think these corrupt politicians are planning to use their haram fart to solve energy crises.
 
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Loadshedding to end by 2017: PM
APP — UPDATED about 7 hours ago

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He said the government had lowered the power tariff by Rs5.32 per unit. ─ Reuters/File
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Tuesday that his government’s top priority was to rid the country of chronic loadshedding by 2017.

Addressing the ground-breaking ceremony of the 24-km signal free corridor of the Islamabad Expressway, Mr Sharif said that besides development of infrastructure, the government was equally concentrating on energy-related projects.

The prime minister said that this year there was less loadshedding than last year and mentioned a number of ongoing power projects, eg the 960MW Neelum Jhelum, 1400MW Tarbella-IV and 1000MW by LNG which, he said, would help address the issue of power shortage.

He said the government had lowered the power tariff by Rs5.32 per unit.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play

Pakistan should srsly consider the proposal of joining the SAARC grid
 
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You cannot expect everything soon. It nowhere says that PM has promised that load shedding will end in 2017-2018. Be patient my friends. At least he is doing something if you compare him to Zordari.
why should we compare him to zardari.Zardari isnt the standard.Why should compare with those who did good not with those who did bad
 
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Exactly. Your last diagram shows power and heat utilization but it does not have the combined cycle power plant? Any reason why not?

I see one big problem with this whole concept which is the availability of gas. Pakistan is running out of the its natural gas reserves. So this will need to be imported from countries such as Iran, ME or central Asia. Can we do a rough calculation that how much gas will be needed if multiple such trigeneration power stations are setup in each city? I am thinking depending on the demographic, a city could have at least four of these facilities?
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Basically the large combined cycle plants have a steam cycle in addition to gas turbines, in order to increase efficiency. If their waste heat is used for say district heating or other industrial purposes, they would be called co-generating plant. But trigeneration systems are usually small, you can even fit them on roof tops or in basements of buildings. They have only a gas turbine. There is no steam cycle, so the waste heat either goes to be used on its own or be used for generation of cooling.

You are right that Pakistan is short on gas but as you noted, it can be imported. About the calculation for the gas, it is complicated. You see, till now we were talking about peak demand and meeting it. What you are talking about now is basically total consumption. As you know you are not peaking all the time during the whole year. Max peak times usually come in early evening and at the middle of the day on a very hot summer day. But the power consumption say in the middle of the night when almost everyone is asleep in autumn or spring is going to be much less. You are not all the time maxing out your generation capacity.

And then how do you define the consumption? Say a trigeneration plant, supplying a community, is providing it with airconditioning, heating as well as electricity. But if there was no trigeneration plant, the same community would be using way more electricity, more than double or even tripple in order to use air conditioning and heat. So it also depends on what kind of electricity generation method you are using. A community being supplied by solar or wind or hydro needs way more electricity than a community being supplied by trigeneration.

But I do a back of the envelope calculation for you here, just for illustrative purposes.

As per World bank Pakistan's percapita electricity consumption is 450 KWh.

Let say, we assume airconditioning and heating be considered as part of electricity in trigeneration. Let's also assume the efficiency of trigeneration is at 80 to 85% level.

Under such conditions if we want to double Pakistan's electricity consumption per capita from 450 KWh to 900 KWh, we would need to provide extra 450 KWh to each person in the country on average. This would be a huge improvement for living standard of people since they would be using twice more power as they are now. So for a population of 200 million this will come to 90 TWh (terawatt-hour) per year of extra power to allow this improvement in living standard.

If you went ahead and produced all this power from tirgeneration, you would need 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year (about 25% of the capacity of IP gas pipeline or 40% of total capacity of TAPI). If you wanted to import all of it, then this will come to 27.4 million cubic meters of gas or about 20 thousand tonnes of LNG per day on average.

As per this price report, importing this much gas in current market conditions, would cost:

IP pipeline: 1.8 billion dollars per year

LNG: 2.5 billion dollars per year (not including the cost of ship transportation, storage/transportation evaporation losses and re-gasification which is about 10-15% additional cost).

TAPI: 2.13 billion dollars per year (not including royalty transit fee to be paid to Afghanistan which is about 10% additional cost).
 
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Basically the large combined cycle plants have a steam cycle in addition to gas turbines, in order to increase efficiency. If their waste heat is used for say district heating or other industrial purposes, they would be called co-generating plant. But trigeneration systems are usually small, you can even fit them on roof tops or in basements of buildings. They have only a gas turbine. There is no steam cycle, so the waste heat either goes to be used on its own or be used for generation of cooling
Ok understood. So this system is doing away with steam cycle. Would trigeneration plant be cheaper than combine cycle power plant? So where is the cooling system reside? How will each house get the cooling/heat? Pumping hot water to every house? Wouldn't this reduce the efficiency? More maintenance?
I was thinking of large cold storages set up beside the power plant and then used for veg/fruit storage and even meat etc. Then distributed to the consumers? Food processing also setup near the power plant so it can use hot water? This maybe more efficient and cost effective than providing heat and cooling to every house?

As per this price report, importing this much gas in current market conditions, would cost:

IP pipeline: 1.8 billion dollars per year

LNG: 2.5 billion dollars per year (not including the cost of ship transportation, storage/transportation evaporation losses and re-gasification which is about 10-15% additional cost).

TAPI: 2.13 billion dollars per year (not including royalty transit fee to be paid to Afghanistan which is about 10% more).

That is really cheap. I maybe wrong but the power sector incurs a circular debt which is more than the figures in your estimates!!!
I am not sure how much money will be needed to develop such a system? but also there has to be a will to do it...
 
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Ok understood. So this system is doing away with steam cycle. Would trigeneration plant be cheaper than combine cycle power plant? So where is the cooling system reside? How will each house get the cooling/heat? Pumping hot water to every house? Wouldn't this reduce the efficiency? More maintenance?
I was thinking of large cold storages set up beside the power plant and then used for veg/fruit storage and even meat etc. Then distributed to the consumers? Food processing also setup near the power plant so it can use hot water? This maybe more efficient and cost effective than providing heat and cooling to every house?



That is really cheap. I maybe wrong but the power sector incurs a circular debt which is more than the figures in your estimates!!!
I am not sure how much money will be needed to develop such a system? but also there has to be a will to do it...

Probably the cost per MW of capacity is not very much different since it is the same technology that drives it. But compared to other methods of generating electricity be nuclear, solar, wind or hydro the cost per MW of capacity is way cheaper. This means lower investment is required to get the same capacity.

In trigeneration, you do not have cooling towers and cooling in the sense you are talking about. Basically the waste heat from primary turbine is used to boil water and make it available for whatever purpose whether for domestic homes or for industrial food processing or the same heat is used in a lithium bromide absorption machine producing cooling which can be provided to either domestic consumers or to industrial cold storage etc.

The heat and cooling is usually distributed from the plant through a loop circuit of hot or cold water. This runs through pipes which are insulated. These kind of district heating and cooling networks are very old and have been in use in Europe and Soviet Union for a long time now. It has very minimal negligible impact on efficiency since trigeneration plants are small and usually power a building or a collection of building or a community.

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trigeneration.jpg


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I do not know about "circular debt" now.

But yeah, trigeneration system is quite cheap both in terms of initial investment required and for its operation and maintenance. This is its biggest advantage over other methods of generation. So actually not much money is needed to develop it. This has more to do with the political will of a nation.

Decision has to be made as the people are suffering. Dilly-dallying will only cause more suffering.
 
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Very useful information. Thank you.
This has more to do with the political will of a nation.

Decision has to be made as the people are suffering. Dilly-dallying will only cause more suffering.
Yes totally agree with you. But I don't see any political will.
Maybe members from each city of Pakistan can initiate small projects in their own towns. This way the work can be initiated simultaneously across Pakistan and the energy problem can be eliminated.
 
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