Energy testing lab being set up at $10m cost

Speakers say energy sector has suffered due to lack of vision

KARACHI: Pakistan’s energy sector has greatly suffered due to a lack of vision and strategy and the main focus has always been on reckless capacity addition at exuberant cost, mentioned speakers at the 15th Oil, Gas and Energy Conference 2019 held at the Karachi Expo Centre on Saturday.

They said energy policymakers had largely ignored other important factors like improvement in generation mix, augmentation of indigenous supplies, upgrading transmission and distribution system and institutional development. Pakistan Council of Renewable Energy Technologies Director General Dr Baqar Rana, while chairing first session of the conference, disclosed that a number of power producing agreements had been signed with China, under which bio, hydel, solar and wind energy would be produced.

He said the National Energy Testing Laboratory was being set up at a cost of $10 million, which would carry out up to 90 tests. The power sector was also utilising silicone solar cell fabrication technology (SSFT), Rana said, adding sustainable policies had been framed on a long-term basis. In his keynote address, Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB) Director Sheeraz Anwar Khan said based on the existing energy mix, Pakistan’s dependence on fossil fuel was 63%, out of which 55% was imported fuel - a serious threat to the country’s energy security.

“Pakistan needs to quickly and heavily trim the share of thermal power generation in the supply mix and replace it with indigenous supplies,” he said, adding in 2016, the total system capacity payments were Rs280 billion or Rs3.4 per unit sold.

However, in 2017, after inclusion of CPEC projects, the capacity payments went up to Rs350 billion and in 2018 the payments almost doubled to Rs644 billion or Rs6.2 per unit. That was almost 60% of the power purchase price. Capacity payments in 2019 were projected at nearly Rs900 billion, which translated into Rs9 per unit, he cautioned.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23^rd, 2019.

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