Optimal power mix     

Abandoning the construction of mega hydropower projects like Kalabagh dam, medium and small hydropower projects in the decade of 1970s reduced the percentage of inexpensive electivity to 30 percent in the power mix. It also caused the complex and lingering problems of power outages and piling up of circular debt and water shortages. From 1990 to 2016, the three PML-N governments spent trillions of rupees on the less productive and subsidized projects including motorways, metro bus and, Lahore and extremely health hazardous and imported coal fired thermal power plants. The result is that power outages still haunt the federal government.

Now it appears that the government is taking decisions in the right direction. National water policy has been approved by Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC), however a national energy policy is yet to come. But Diyamer Basha dam of 4600 megawatts and Monda dam 800 megawatts projects have got ECNEC approval. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Friday visited the Karot Hydro power project being built on River Khelum. The project would add 720 megawatts to the national grid. It is the fourth among the five cascade hydropower projects being developed on this river. The project would be completed within 60 months. Its structural layout includes rock filled dam, spillways, powerhouse, diversion tunnels, headrace power tunnels and tailrace tunnel. The project is being developed on build-own-operate-transfer basis with five years construction period and 30 years concession period.

While the federal government has already announced that it has overcome electricity shortage, power load shedding has returned with a bang. For the power shortage, which exceeds 5000 megawatts, the energy ministry’s power division that looks after the national grid and distribution system attributed the revival of power outages to the unavailability of Balloki, Bhikki, Haveli Bahdurshah power plants, Neelum Jhelum and other hydropower stations. Officials in the petroleum division of the ministry of energy say that is just the beginning as furnace oil stock are at very low level and the oil shipment may reach very late due to the belated permission given by the Prime Minister for the import of furnace oil. Even the arrival of ships loaded with furnace oil will not immediately solve the problem of power outages. The entire supply chain from berthing to the product offloading, pumping to the pipelines or tankers and transportation to power houses require at least 15 days.

The Prime Minister delayed the permission for the import of furnace oil to replenish its depleting stock merely because he wanted to promote power production with liquefied natural gas (LNG) being imported from Qatar. This ill conceived move backfired, dissolving in thin air the government often repeated claim to have added 10600 megawatts additional power to distribution system. The ongoing hydropower projects will take five years for completion and the new mega project will take 15 year to be made operational. The short term solution lies in the construction of 2100 megawatts small hydro power stations 50- 100 megawatts in KP and wind mills to substantially reduce the lingering problem of load shedding and lower the power tariff. The small hydro power projects of KP await clearance from the CDWP of Planning Commission and subsequent ECNEC approval.