ISLAMABAD - A two-decade-old strategy made to deal with private sector for power generation has left nothing but worst kind of power outages in the country, which played a major factor to further indulge the government in circular debt.
Thanks to policies of experts, as even private companies continuously leaving no stone unturned to intensify the agonies of common man.
At present as many as 15 private companies have capacity to generate 4,000mw but on several occasions power plants of these private firms worked below to their installed capacity only due to shortage of cash to buy fuel to run these plants.
Hub Power Project has capacity to produce 1292 MW, Uch Power Limited 586 MW, AES Pak Gen. (Pvt) 365 MW, AES Lalpir 362 MW, Tapal Energy Limited 126 MW, Southern Electric Power Company 115.2 MW, Saba Power Company 114 MW, Rousch (Pakistan) Power 412 MW, Liberty Power Project 235 MW, Kohinoor Energy 131.44 MW, Japan Power Generation 120 MW, Habibullah Coastal Power Co. 140 MW, Gul Ahmed Energy 136.17 MW, Fauji Kabirwala Power Company 157 MW and Altern Energy Limited 29 MW.
According to Water & Power Ministry, the electricity shortfall in the national grid has dropped from 4300 megawatt to 3900MW on Tuesday. Electricity generation has enhanced up to 12300MW while demand is around 16000MW.
“Though all eyes are set on the newly elected government to come to rescue the hapless masses already bearing heavy brunt of hours long scheduled and unscheduled power outages yet viewing the abundance of problems faced by country’s power sector, it seems that to light up homes and factories round the clock will take months if not years, an official at water & power ministry said,” adding, that hydro power potential on main tributaries and Indus River particularly is above 40,000 MW while hydro power potential on sub tributaries is around 1,200 MW.
Background interviews and discussions with energy experts also made it very clear that only a long-term plan after conducting proper research and analysis would help the government to overcome ballooned out power crisis. They were of the opinion that the incoming PML-N led federal government should make a focused and sincere effort to complete hydropower projects on six different sites of Indus River having potential to generate 18900 megawatts of electricity.
They said on Indus river, Yugo dam has potential to produce 520 MW, while Skardu dam 1600 MW, Tungus dam 2200, Yulbo dam 2800 MW, Bunji dam 7100 MW and Diamer-Bhasha dam has the potential to generate 4500 MW of cheap hydropower.
“Due to available large numbers of glaciers and snow deposits in the mountains situated in Gilgit Baltistan province, a region given autonomy by the previous PPP-led government, is the water bank for Pakistan in meeting its water and power requirements, an expert said, adding, “ the Water and Power Department Authority of Gilgat Baltistan has also marked 36 projects to produce 204 megawatts of hydropower on tributaries and sub tributaries of mighty river Indus.
He said the areas of Gilgat Baltistan has 72496 square kilometers long vast water encatchment areas, which include about 27 per cent glaciers, the biggest in the world outside polar region.