Power crisis to end next summer: Khuram Dastgir

ISLAMABAD: Electricity crisis would end by next summer as the government injects an additional 5,000MW into the system by June 30, 2023 from projects that the PTI government delayed by close to four years.

Federal Minister for Power Division Khuram Dastgir Khan made this disclosure in an exclusive interview with The News on Wednesday.

Dastgir said that the criminal delay in the completion of these projects has resulted in the re-emergence of the menace of load shedding.

To tackle the power issue by the end of next year, the government has decided to inject cheaper solar energy of 6,000MW and for this purpose, the solar policy would be announced by August 1, 2022. Out of 6,000MW of solar power, the government would be able to generate 2,500MW by June 30, 2023.

This way, it would be able to add 7,500MW to the system within the ongoing financial year. So in the next summer season, there should be no electricity crisis. However, by the end of next year, increase in electricity generation would go up to 11,000MW. Once the government manages to generate 6,000MW of solar power, it would be used in the daytime, and load-based power plants of 6,000MW would be made offline during daytime and run during the night. This way, the tariff would come down by 20 percent and the import bill would also be slashed down as well. On June 30, the country’s demand for electricity increased up to 30,009MW – highest in history. Effective electricity capacity that the country has, stands at 25,000MW which belies the impression developed by the PTI government that the PML-N government has increased the country’s generation capacity much more than the electricity needs.

In a positive development, the government has curtailed the circular debt to Rs2,250 billion as of June 30, 2022 from Rs2,467 billion by paying Rs214 billion to IPPs including CPEC power plants.

The power minister touched on almost all issues starting from circular debt, CPEC power plants up to more electricity imports. An official delegation would visit Qatar in the days to come for the supply of more LNG and the Pakistan government would also make an offer to Qatar and UAE to purchase two LNG power plants and ask them to supply LNG to the plants and run them, he shared.

Speaking of delays caused by the PTI government in power projects, he shared that the 1,320MW Shanghai Thar coal power plant, 1,263MW RLNG-based power plant at Trimmu, and 1,320MW coal-based Jamshoro power plant and some others projects were paramount for energy security.

“We increased efforts to complete these projects and make them functional within the ongoing financial year. RLNG-based power plant at Trimmu will come on stream in the next month of August as its testing has been completed,” Dastgir informed, and added that the PTI government did not take any initiative to complete this project despite its completion up to 80 percent in the last PML-N government.

Talking about the forthcoming solar policy, the minister said that reverse bidding for 6,000MW solar projects would be introduced putting aside the cost plus tariff, and whosoever came up with the lowest bids would be allowed to initiate construction. Government wants the minimum tariff bids up to 3.5 cents/unit.

“We will install the solar projects along with the load-based power plants such as those inefficient power plants which will be phased out from the system so that evacuation of solar power will be made through the nearby grid system of the load-based power plants. We have plenty of land along with RLNG power plants at Trimmu and Haveli Bahadur Shah. In addition, we also have sizable land along with Jamshoro, Guddu and Muzaffargarh power plants.” Government also plans to ban new power plants on imported fuel and will add new capacity based on local fuel, such as Thar coal, wind, solar, and hydel. However, the government will continue the policy to install more nuclear power plants.

More importantly, the government has also decided to convert existing imported coal-based power plants of 3,960MW including Port Qasim, Sahiwal, and China Hub coal power plants (1,320MW each).

This initiative was being taken to scale down fuel imports, as the fuel import bill ate up almost $20 billion in 11 months of last fiscal 2021-22. The process to convert these projects would take investment and time as the boilers of the said plants would need some specific changes for calibration with Thar coal, Dastgir said.

Meanwhile, a government team was already in Afghanistan to import coal for running the imported coal-based power plants. “Once the coal supply chain from Afghanistan is developed, Pakistan will increase its reliance on Afghanistan and Central Asian states for coal.”

The minister said the government has set up a revolving fund of Rs50 billion on the demand of Chinese IPPs to ensure timely payments. The government would not take up the issue of revisiting the Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) of CPEC IPPs as was done with 47 IPPs by the last government, which damaged CPEC projects manifold.

“Now we are in the process to recharge the projects and once the whole CPEC is fully recharged and gives dividends to the Chinese investors, then the government may ask Chinese counterparts to review PPAs.”

Since China invested in Pakistan when no country was willing to invest a penny in the country, Pakistan owes China a lot to this effect, the minister said.

Pakistan currently imports 30-70MW of electricity from Iran under the agreement of 110MW, and sometimes there were fluctuations in import due to the demand in Iran. Pakistan has inked a new agreement to import 100MW for which a transmission line would be laid down from Polan (Iran) to Gwadar by end of 2022 or at the outset of 2023.

He said the government has also increased its emphasis on laying down its own infrastructure in Balochistan, and to this effect NTDC would lay down a high transmission line of 500kv from Makran coast to Gwadar. In summer, Pakistan will import 1,000MW from Tajikistan under the CASA-1000 project, while the country would export its excess electricity to Tajikistan and Afghanistan in winter.