The government has decided to initiate a survey of electricity consumers to address issues of power theft, line losses, power companies’ losses and circular debt.
According to sources in the ministry of finance, power distribution companies will conduct the survey, which is part of a broader strategy chalked out by the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the Planning Commission to tackle the energy crisis.
A survey for the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) has already been finalised as part of a pilot project. Feedback from the project will be funnelled into finalising the survey for power distribution companies.
Pakistan will push hard for quick implementation of a long-delayed trans-regional gas pipeline from Turkmenistan in a bid to ease its mounting energy crisis, Petroleum Minister Naveed Qamar said on Tuesday. Senior officials of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on Monday inked the framework of an agreement to construct the project with an estimated value of $3.3 billion.
The project would pump natural gas to Pakistan and India through the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, the stronghold of the Taliban and its birthplace. More energy security could ease pressure on Pakistan’s government, which faces a range of challenges, from a home-grown Taliban insurgency to what will likely be years of economic pain after summer floods caused billions of dollars in damages. Read more…
An interesting report from DAWN summaries the Asian Development Bank report which holds the Ministry of Water and Power and NEPRA (National Electric Power Regulatory Authority) responsible for power crises the country faces.
The Asian Development Bank has held two major power sector stakeholders — the Ministry of Water and Power and the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) — responsible for most of the ills Pakistan’s power sector is facing today, including loadshedding, system losses and high tariffs.
This puts a serious question mark on the performance of the two public sector institutions designed and set up to solve electricity problems and remove consumers’ sufferings. They have been blamed for stalling or delaying reforms launched by the government more than two decades ago.
For the electricity traiffs the limit is beyond the skys. What new comes in is differentiated power tariff to be implemented from September 1. The Tribune gives the details:
The federal government has introduced differentiated tariffs for electricity consumers, to be implemented on bills sent after September 1.
Based on time-of-use metering, the move would translate into a reduction from 4 paisa to 48 paisa per kilowatt hour (p/kWh) for different consumer categories.
According to a notification, the current tariffs will be maintained for peak hours while the reduction will be applicable on off-peak hours for residential, commercial, industrial and bulk users.
The reductions in off-peak tariffs are as follows: 48 paisa per kWh for residential, 24 paisa per kWh for commercial, 10 paisa per kWh for B1 and 24 paisa per kWh for B2 industrial consumers. For bulk consumers, the reduction is four paisa per kWh and 14 paisa per kWh for C-1B and C-1C categories respectively. For street lighting, the reduction is 29 paisa per kWh.
Will this reduction matter much for the consumers?
The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) allowed on Tuesday a 26 paisa per unit increase in power tariff for consumers of nine distribution companies of Wapda from August 31 on account of monthly fuel cost adjustment.
A Nepra official told Dawn that power companies had sought an increase of 52 paisa per unit under the fuel adjustment formula for July.
But the power regulator allowed an increase 26 paisa and turned down the rest sought on account of system losses, late payments and overall circular debt.
The official said that Nepra had sent its determination to the federal government for notification. The new tariff will be recovered from consumers in the next billing month. The new tariff will not apply to KESC whose fuel-based tariff adjustment will be made separately.
The government is facing difficulties in unloading oil consignments from ships because of port congestion and infrastructure limitations, resulting in supply shortages in flood affected areas of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Northern parts of the country.
Sources in the petroleum ministry told Dawn on Monday that the country’s oil consumption had dropped by about 50 per cent after the recent floods as transport activities had substantially slumped because of damage caused to the road infrastructure.
They said the stocks of petroleum products diesel, furnace oil and petrol were enough for more than 28 days of the country’s usual requirement but transportation problems were resulting in short supplies in many parts of the country, particularly in Sindh and Gilgit-Baltistan.
As reported by Stanford News, a new solar energy conversion process discovered by Stanford engineers could revamp solar power production. This
process simultaneously combines the light and heat of solar radiation to generate electricity could offer more than double the efficiency of existing solar cell technology, say the Stanford engineers who discovered it and proved that it works. The process, called “photon enhanced thermionic emission,” or PETE, could reduce the costs of solar energy production enough for it to compete with oil as an energy source.
In our last post on the Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG); we discussed that LPG when mixed with air in right proportion, gives a perfect replacement for Natural Gas. While mentioning, the potential opportunities SNG can provide we said that Industries can use it as an alternate/back-up gas during the Natural Gas (NG) shutdown or curtailments times. In this post we shall discuss the importance of this alternate gas for industries and its need in the coming times.
In Pakistan, NG crisis are no different than energy crisis. Earlier we had NG shutdown hours/days only in winters, now we even have them in summers. With this happening it is easily predicted that in coming times or not thinking of far in the coming winters the NG shortage is going to get worst.
Managing Director Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), Dr Faiz Ullah Abbasi, has affirmed this while addressing a recent business gathering. He has said the at the problems regarding the supply of gas in the coming winter would become more serious as compared to the last year, as the demand and supply gap has started to widen.
