Power T&D capacity to reach 26,000MW next year

Power secretary briefs Senate panel on capacity, peak season generation

ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary committee was informed on Tuesday that the power transmission and distribution capacity would be increased to 26,000 megawatts next year.

In the ongoing summer, an average of 21,000MW of electricity was transmitted by the system with the highest load of 23,000MW and it would be increased to 26,000MW next summer, said Power Division Secretary Irfan Ali while briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Power.

Last year, the transmission capacity was 19,000MW, he added. The Senate standing committee, chaired by Senator Fida Muhammad, discussed the installed capacity and peak season generation of hydroelectric power along with details of all power stations in the country.

The committee was informed that Water and Power Development Authority’s (Wapda) total installed hydel generation capacity was 9,387MW and that of the independent power producers (IPPs) was 382MW.

Average daily hydel generation was said to be 5,191MW by Wapda and 252MW by the IPPs with maximum generation reaching 5,732MW and 302MW respectively.

The committee was told that some tunnels had been closed and maintenance work resulted in lower power generation by some units of Tarbela but they had been repaired now. Meeting participants were surprised to know that a major transformer of Mangla power generation system had been out of order for the last six months and the country was losing around 400-500MW of electricity.

The meeting was briefed that power generation depended highly on the level of water release indent given by the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) because power generation was a byproduct of water.

The members noted that the units that produced the cheapest electricity should be run at the highest possible efficiency and their maintenance should not be scheduled at the peak power consumption time. The committee was of the view that the discussion would be more fruitful if the Ministry of Water, Wapda and Irsa officials were also present in the next meeting.

NEPRA hikes power tariff by Rs1.49 per unit

The committee also discussed alleged overbilling and unscheduled load-shedding by K-Electric as reported in the print and electronic media. It was told that K-Electric had 29 business centres across the city and hence it was reachable for all customers through customer complaint call centres. The official said illegal hook connections in huge numbers had been removed and replaced by ABC connections. The committee was told that all billing was done according to guidelines of the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) and the system had a strong monitoring mechanism.

He added that customer and Nepra complaints had decreased over time. The power secretary told the committee that the rest of the country was also following this and slowly the system was switching to ABC transformers.

While discussing electricity theft, the committee members called for study of data of domestic and commercial theft. They also called for suggesting a well-researched proposal about whether AMI meters were the solution or the ABC meters.

The committee asked the energy ministry to have a meeting on what systematic changes were being proposed in the power sector.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 24^th, 2019.

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