Pakistan - Power Sector and its Future (discuss)

[I.R.A]

They don't have energy demands outside of the few major cities. And even within those cities they have power outages So in short Afghanistan does not meet its energy demands.

But all our sold window ACs landed there, and they don't pay bills.

 

[Shah01]

It may be inappropriate to say this, but at the end of the day, Pakistan is still Pakistan . So go easy with your calculations lol.

Also, predicting what will happen 40 yrs from now is not really easy...Power consumption per capita may even decrease as efficiency of appliances and industry etc increases. But that also depends on how the gdp/capita increases. Only if people's buying power increases will they be able to afford more appliances and more electricity.....So it really is quite complicated.

Don't mind if I sound non technical but I find it hard to agree with this. This huge increase in consumption in turn depends on users and consumers and their appliances, don't you think it would mean lots of industry and lots of homes being built etc etc? This increase in my opinion can result if the purchasing power and living standard of every citizen changes dramatically over this period??????? I mean in nutshell the demand will remain stagnant at some point unless lots of industries being setup and houses being built, which is highly unlikely. Otherwise I don't see any direct relation between population growth and electricity consumption....

Yes it is very difficult to model these things. I will tinker with the model and reduce some of the assumptions on growth.
I think the growth in population will remain as per my model. I will reduce the electricity demand growth to 2% to get to 1800 kWh by 2055 (would this be a better estimate?).

 

[I.R.A]

Yes it is very difficult to model these things. I will tinker with the model and reduce some of the assumptions on growth.
I think the growth in population will remain as per my model. I will reduce the electricity demand growth to 2% to get to 1800 kWh by 2055 (would this be a better estimate?).

Hmmmmmm looks reasonable to me like if I say we don't expect a worst cum scenario, but do consider what if scenarios in your estimations and calculations and reach some middle point, if it is possible. In the end as Faez said its Pakistan anything is possible, if people can buy 500k vehicles in a month then anything can happen. You are right it is very difficult to model and accurately estimate because in my opinion there is lots of uncertainty and variables involved. You performed a difficult task bro

 

[Viny]

Growth in power sector is undeniable, its going to grow much faster than anything else in pakistan. Today power is more essential the other basic needs. India has been achieving 10%+ growth rate in last few years and has doubled its generation capacity in last 6yrs. Sooner or later Pakistan will grow at much higher speed than that, once there is some what more stabilization. Another successfull 5yr term of democratic government and pakistan will be in road to growth.

 

[Shah01]

Hmmmmmm looks reasonable to me like if I say we don't expect a worst cum scenario, but do consider what if scenarios in your estimations and calculations and reach some middle point, if it is possible. In the end as Faez said its Pakistan anything is possible, if people can buy 500k vehicles in a month then anything can happen. You are right it is very difficult to model and accurately estimate because in my opinion there is lots of uncertainty and variables involved. You performed a difficult task bro

Ok done some tinkering with population growth and electricity. I could update the original post or should I leave them here?
New assumptions as follows:
Population 320 million in 2055 (growth rate 1.6% today which decreases to about 1.1%).
Electricity 800kWh to about 1800kWh (increasing at about 1% every year).
So we will need about 95 Gigawatt of capacity by year 2055. These are very conservative estimates on the power growth side.

 

[I.R.A]

@Faiez mia what do you say now about Shah's new estimation and graphs?

And Shah its up to you if you feel its better to edit the Op to give the reader updated info, please go ahead edit it.

 

[WAJsal]

I am working on another piece of paper which will look at Pakistan's canal system and water reservoirs.

If i could help i would love to, just too busy.
Keep up the good work.

@Faiez mia what do you say now about Shah's new estimation and graphs?

And Shah its up to you if you feel its better to edit the Op to give the reader updated info, please go ahead edit it.

Most probably estimated figures, as they might or might not change from time to time. Fairly close, though. Not an expert, so won't say much.

 

[Daneshmand]

Don't mind if I sound non technical but I find it hard to agree with this. This huge increase in consumption in turn depends on users and consumers and their appliances, don't you think it would mean lots of industry and lots of homes being built etc etc? This increase in my opinion can result if the purchasing power and living standard of every citizen changes dramatically over this period??????? I mean in nutshell the demand will remain stagnant at some point unless lots of industries being setup and houses being built, which is highly unlikely. Otherwise I don't see any direct relation between population growth and electricity consumption.

And another conspiracy that I cannot get rid of is how does Afghanistan meet its energy demands? Why do I see some contribution from Pakistan too

You are generally right. The "problem" is, the cost of manufacturing the appliances is dropping. A TV would have cost a fortune in 1960's to buy for an average South Asian family. Now even a poor family can afford two TV's if they wanted to. Then another "problem" is the rapid growth of different gadgets which are consuming power. From mobile phones to tablets and many other things that will get invented along the way. These are finding their way into even the poorest of the society.

Afghanistan has the world's lowest energy and electricity consumption per capita: List of top international rankings by country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Adecypher]

@Shah01 good thread, you will find some additional info and recommendations/suggestions (yours included) to solve the Power Crises facing the Country discussed in the following thread also (just for reference):

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

 

[I.R.A]

You are generally right. The "problem" is, the cost of manufacturing the appliances is dropping. A TV would have cost a fortune in 1960's to buy for an average South Asian family. Now even a poor family can afford two TV's if they wanted to. Then another "problem" is the rapid growth of different gadgets which are consuming power. From mobile phones to tablets and many other things that will get invented along the way. These are finding their way into even the poorest of the society.

Afghanistan has the world's lowest energy and electricity consumption per capita: List of top international rankings by country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As I said there are lots of variables and uncertainty and one of those is innovation. I remember my childhood in my village we would watch "Knight Rider", "Air Wolf" on a 14 inch black and white TV run on a car battery. We used lanterns for light, coal Iron for pressing clothes, and were happily living, but then in sometime progress hit us and now we cannot live an hour without electricity

With appliances getting cheaper you must also consider that business of UPS, solar systems and gensets is prospering. May be sometime innovation will lead to energy efficient appliances.

And for opportunities to generate power, I have story of a village in Dasoo Kohistan, a remote village which funded its own turbine and is now sharing electricity produced by it which is sufficient for their needs.

 

[Shah01]

@Shah01 good thread, you will find some additional info and recommendations/suggestions (yours included) to solve the Power Crises facing the Country discussed in the following thread also (just for reference):

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

Thank you. Yes this analysis was done after having a discussion between myself and Daneshmand in that thread. I was curious about how long the crisis will carry on and at what cost the infrastructure can be setup.

 

[Sipahi]

The mess in the power sector has taken decades to develop, and will take several decades to resolve, if at all.

Short Term Solutions : Buy Cheap Energy From Iran. (Ready Made electricity), LNG
Long Term: IP Gas pipeline, TAP, Bhasha Dasu and other dams ...

 

[Shah01]

As I said there are lots of variables and uncertainty and one of those is innovation. I remember my childhood in my village we would watch "Knight Rider", "Air Wolf" on a 14 inch black and white TV run on a car battery. We used lanterns for light, coal Iron for pressing clothes, and were happily living, but then in sometime progress hit us and now we cannot live an hour without electricity

With appliances getting cheaper you must also consider that business of UPS, solar systems and gensets is prospering. May be sometime innovation will lead to energy efficient appliances.

And for opportunities to generate power, I have story of a village in Dasoo Kohistan, a remote village which funded its own turbine and is now sharing electricity produced by it which is sufficient for their needs.

Yes there are many variables and I have tried to simplify it by concentrating on a few major ones and try to estimate the power usage as well as the growth in both power usage and population. Mind you I haven't even added the line losses to this calculation!
The bold part reminds me of my childhood .

I have looked at these power plants as I see producing electricity from small gensets is a big waste of energy resources and money (both are precious). You have to understand that small genset at best have an electrical efficiency of about 25% compared with today's power plant of 55% plus. Furthermore when a genset is run at home it is not even utilizing all the electricity produced as one could have a 2kW genset but only running at partial load so further reducing the electrical efficiency. Imagine how much $ the country will save if by just increasing the efficiency of the system (oil imports will be at least halved for the power sector).
There are environmental benefits as well as there would be less pollution be it noise/air. Much less maintenance will be needed.
I even propose to setup these power plants at community level with some sort of a joint venture with government. There are normally several grids in a city and each grid station could have one of these gas fired power plants.

 

[VCheng]

Short Term Solutions : Buy Cheap Energy From Iran. (Ready Made electricity), LNG
Long Term: IP Gas pipeline, TAP, Bhasha Dasu and other dams ...

These steps, if taken, can only lessen the severity of the problem, but will not eliminate it.

 

[Sipahi]

These steps, if taken, can only lessen the severity of the problem, but will not eliminate it.

With that much coal and thermal potential Pakistan should be self sufficient on its electricity requirements

its all our mistake that we continue to elect impotent Parliamentarians those are failed to make consensus on a singly bloody dam, let Kalabagh aside... Every Pakistani should elect best candidate