How to deliver extra power added to grid?

Infrastructure bottlenecks impair Discos load capacity

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is working to add 10,000 megawatts of electricity in the national grid by working on several projects linked with China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), but bottlenecks in power distribution system impaired the capacity of distribution companies (Discos) to carry the enhanced power load.

This was exposed at a meeting held last month.

Secretary to the Prime Minister Fawad Hasan Fawad said that priority should now be given to enhance the transmission and distribution capacities of NTDC and distribution companies.



Despite repeated re-assurances of ministry of water and power regarding improvement of transmission and distribution system, major concerns still remain on this account. He said that monitoring of NPCC dashboard in the PM Office indicates that discos were incapable of carrying even the current allocated loads.

With the addition of 10,000MW of additional load, the situation would only worsen if transmission and distribution systems were not urgently improved.

The secretary for water and power, however, insisted that several measures had recently been taken to boost the carrying capacities of NTDC and discos, primarily by removing system constraints relating to grid stations, power transformers and transmission lines.



According to him, the carrying capacity of distribution companies had been increased by as much as 3,000MW because of these measures.

“Enhanced capacities of Discos will, however, be ascertained through a third-party evaluation,” he maintained.

The secretary to the prime minister criticised non-utilisation of funds allocated by Nepra for upgrading Discos.



Citing the example of IESCO, he said that despite being the most efficient Disco, it was still incapable of carrying such loads even after upgrades on the NPCC dashboard.

Fawad believed that the energy sector’s main challenge was now transmission and distribution capacity to fully utilise additional generation in the system.

Stressing the need to quickly completing transmission line projects, he said that this was crucial for evaluating generation capacity of new power plants.



In a related development, the prime minister directed the ministry of water and power to complete the Matiari-Lahore transmission line project within the given timeframe.

During the meeting, the general manager of the National Power Control Centre (NPCC) said that the capacity of Discos was being enhanced by installation of new transformers to cope with increased power load.

He also shared data regarding the demand and power drawn by Discos against their allocations for a 24-hour cycle in July and August last year.



During this period, he pointed out, Discos demanded 20,162MW against their total allocation of 20,800MW but actually drew 17,322 MW.

He said that all Discos were being supplied in line with their maximum demand without any load-shedding.

The Secretary to Prime Minister stated that lower consumption by Discos against allocated supplies clearly suggested that there were bottlenecks in the transmission and distribution system.

“This (situation) will worsen with further commissioning of additional capacity in 2017 and 2018,” he said.