Surplus power generation in Pakistan: New problems

[ACE OF HEARTS]

Pakistan should build more energy consuming industry to fully take advantage of the CPEC, those power stations, grid, railway is a tool, now it's time for Pakistan to pick the tools and have more factories set up and running.

Desalination plants catering to Karachi city's 30 Million + people, providing fresh water, would be ideal to utilize that extra electricity production

 

[Chakar The Great]

Who are these shitty people writing these articles???

 

[TheSnakeEatingMarkhur]

Nation Plagued by Power Shortages Suddenly Has Too Much Electricity
Faseeh MangiJanuary 27, 2021, 12:52 AM EST

• Government to pay power producers $2.8b by Dec. to cut tariffs

After spending decades tackling electricity shortages, Pakistan now faces a new and unfamiliar problem: too much generation capacity.

The South Asian nation’s power supply flipped to a surplus last year after a flurry of coal- and natural gas-fired plants were built, mostly financed by the Belt and Road Initiative launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013. Pakistan is slated to have as much as 50% too much electricity by 2023, according to Tabish Gauhar, special assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan for the power sector.



That is problematic because the government is the sole buyer of electricity and pays producers even when they don’t generate. To help tackle the issue, the government has negotiated with producers to end that system, lower their tariffs and asked them to delay the start of new projects, according to Gauhar. It is also trying to convince industries to switch to electricity from gas.

“We have a lot of expensive electricity and that is a burden,” he said.

While the Chinese financing and the surplus is a welcome change after years of shortages that left exporters unable to meet orders and major cities without electricity for much of the day, two main problems remain. The first is a creaking network, and the second is the need to supply cheaper power while keeping emissions in check.

“Pakistan has overcapacity, yet it still has power shortages because of the unreliability of the grid,” said Simon Nicholas, an analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis. “They haven’t invested in the grid the same way they’ve invested in power plants.”

The last nationwide blackout happened just last month after an outage at the country’s largest facility. While the new plants have also boosted coal generation to a record fifth of the power mix, Pakistan plans to increase the share of wind and solar to 30%, while another 30% will be generated from river-run dams.

Pakistan will pay private power producers 450 billion rupees ($2.8 billion) in overdue electricity bills in a deal to reduce future tariffs. The government targets to pay 40% of that bill by the end of February, with the second payment slated before December, according to Gauhar. A third of the payment will be made in cash, with the rest in fixed income instruments, he added.



About 8 gigawatts worth of government-owned power plants will also have tariffs reduced. And Pakistan plans to negotiate lower tariffs for mining and power generation at the Thar coalfield, said Gauhar.

The government aims to delay about 10 gigawatts worth of planned power projects, including coal and wind plants, since there won’t be any need for them next year, said Gauhar.



@Bilal Khan (Quwa) @waz @Riz @Trailer23 Why does the government need to buy power from the suppliers? Why can’t they sell electricity directly to consumers? Doesn’t seem like a smart idea for the government to incur billions of USD each year buying electricity from the power suppliers, especially now that there’s a surplus. What’s the benefit? Any economic explanation behind this?

Dont worry this electricity will be used by industries in next few years..

Pakistan electricity per capita is still low

Pakistan electricity per capita is still low

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-electricity-consumption

defence.pk

View attachment 713444

Per capita electricity generation

Annual average electricity generation per person, measured in kilowatt-hours.

ourworldindata.org

That is 2019 we are in 2021 and in last 2 years many projects have been operationalised..

 

[akshay gehlot]

Why don't you try electrifying your railway? Or at least some sections of it ... Its much more eco friendly wrt emissions , will utilize the extra electricity and save money on petroleum imports

 

[Shah Khalid]

Once The HVDC Transmission Line Is Operational Many Issues Can Become Easier To Solve.With SEZ and Relocation of Industries Things Should Get Better

Why don't you try electrifying your railway? Or at least some sections of it ... Its much more eco friendly wrt emissions , will utilize the extra electricity and save money on petroleum imports

Refining Industry Opposes It

 

[BoggedDown]

Refining Industry Opposes It

This is typical Pakistani conspiracy theory. When they they do not have proper answer for their incapability, they put the blame on other. When more that 50% of petrol and diesel are imported, how can refining industry oppose electrification of railways as it will not definitely cut their market share rather there will be less import.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Desalination plant running on Electricity / Solar energy would be good bet I like that Idea
Waste Management plant running on Electricity / Solar would also be a good idea

 

[Hyde]

There is significant population in Pakistan who were never connected with National Grid. We can easily increase number of consumers to shed this sudden surge of supply

If you read news reports from 2013-18 the energy experts used to forecast that Pakistan’a demand in electricity would surge to 50,000MW by 2023

there is significant population who are still using Generators to produce electricity. I think this is a non issue for us if we can give little boost to our Industrial sector or make it easy for consumers to instal new electricity meters

 

[HRK]

There is significant population in Pakistan who were never connected with National Grid. We can easily increase number of consumers to shed this sudden surge of supply

Issue are

- Power Generation Companies are not authorised to sell their electricity to consumers directly and could not act as Power Distributions Companies ....

- Almost all Power Generation companies [IPP] are installed in areas which are already connected to Government own National Grid [in Sindh and Punjab] and because of these reasons these companies logically did not installed their Grids therefore these companies do not have direct access to end consumers.

- Solution to this problem is simple Deregulation of Power Distributions Sector this will be a logical step after allowing Generation of Electricity by Independent Power Producers.

This will benefit Not only Government but to the whole power Generation sector and would increase

- Job opportunities in distribution sector at local level as IPP could offer their generated electricity to Industry in Urban centres of Sindh and Punjab where they already have their Power Generation infrastructure installed

- Line Losses would be reduce as comparative size of Private Grid will be smaller and could be monitored more effectively by these private companies

- Industry will have access to comparatively cheap electricity from alternative source.

- Would bring Investment in Power Distributions Sector and installations of Local Grid by private companies which already exist and Operational in Pakistan

 

[Sal12]

Let me give you guys a personal example. I have always been a British Gas customer. I never thought about it and since back in 1980s it was a national monopoly we all had only British Gas as customer. Hoewever over the years private companies were allowed in to the energy market.

Recently I was feeling the pinch with energy bills. So I saw this internet site that offered cheaper energy. I used it and the lowest prices [almost 40% cheaper] were offered by Avro Energy. When I applied to them I was subjected to credit, ID and energy history checks. At times I felt it was like I was applying for a bank loan. When I eventually passed they took me in as customer.

Apparently the reason was Avro work on minimum cost. That means small workforce, lean operation and only customers with good credit records with monthly direct debits where you pay first. This means the company does not pick up the costs/bad debts from bad customers.

British Gas by law are required to provide power to everybody so they lose lot of money on customers who don't pay or chasing them for debts or installing pre-payment meters. Companies like Avro would scream if the had to put up with the Pakistani market.

And guys my monthly energy bill - electricty/gas is fixed at £143 per month.

I think you are still paying more or perhaps you are consuming more electricity and gas. I own a house and this month I have switched my supplier from bristol energy to Green Energy. The direct debit is £60 per month.

 

[CrazyZ]

A chicken and egg problem. You need surplus electricity to reliable generate more economic growth (industry in particular). Industry wont thrive if there are constant outages. First invest in energy infrastructure then in the Industry to consume to it. Look at the charts for East Asia. This planned growth cycle can continue continue upward and upward as long as both generation and loads (industry) are invested in continually.

 

[Hyde]

I think you are still paying more or perhaps you are consuming more electricity and gas. I own a house and this month I have switched my supplier from bristol energy to Green Energy. The direct debit is £60 per month.

Mine is £65 per month for 3 bedroom house, my cousin pays around £128 per month for similar sized house

I think a lot depends on the area and energy provider. My sister pays £72 and she lives 3 minutes away from my home and one of my aunt pays only £38 for 2 bedroom flat. I think the average for 3 bedroom house is between £65 to £140 since a lot of cheap energy providers do not operate everywhere

 

[Hyde]

Issue are

- Power Generation Companies are not authorised to sell their electricity to consumers directly and could not act as Power Distributions Companies ....

- Almost all Power Generation companies [IPP] are installed in areas which are already connected to Government own National Grid [in Sindh and Punjab] and because of these reasons these companies logically did not installed their Grids therefore these companies do not have direct access to end consumers.

- Solution to this problem is simple Deregulation of Power Distributions Sector this will be a logical step after allowing Generation of Electricity by Independent Power Producers.

This will benefit Not only Government but to the whole power Generation sector and would increase

- Job opportunities in distribution sector at local level as IPP could offer their generated electricity to Industry in Urban centres of Sindh and Punjab where they already have their Power Generation infrastructure installed

- Line Losses would be reduce as comparative size of Private Grid will be smaller and could be monitored more effectively by these private companies

- Industry will have access to comparatively cheap electricity from alternative source.

- Would bring Investment in Power Distributions Sector and installations of Local Grid by private companies which already exist and Operational in Pakistan

I agree with you 100%

I think we need to private energy sector, let the companies have control over grids and let them fix the biggest issue of line losses

in UK there are countless jobs advertised for Electricians and Gas safe engineers even at this time of pandemic. The job opportunities will be limitless in the power distribution companies and the government job should be to just monitor and make some money from the distributors

I think it was not possible back in 2018 when we used to face load shedding all the time but now it is possible after surplus in electricity

 

[ziaulislam]

Please tell me how many power generating companies in the world you know who would be prepared to invest even a cent if they knew they would have to collect their bills from the Pakistani consumer? NON.

So I suspect when the country was in dire shortage of power the only way of attracting investors was if the government agree to be contractually bound to buy and pay. That would leave the collection problem in hands of the government.

First noone is saying abr collecting bills but capacity payments

Well. 6 new LNGs IPPs were govt owned

If govt wasnt in position to attract foreign investment then ..better nothing then expensive power..

Expensive power is useless..we found out that

Better govt spent money in power it self

And govt was still easily able to attract investment in hydro IPPs

All it needed was to divert funds from PSDP to power sector it didnt..

And here we are

 

[Shah Khalid]

This is typical Pakistani conspiracy theory. When they they do not have proper answer for their incapability, they put the blame on other. When more that 50% of petrol and diesel are imported, how can refining industry oppose electrification of railways as it will not definitely cut their market share rather there will be less import.

Do you even know how refining works????And if you had ever bothered to study you would know that the refining industry wants