ENERCON urges govt to add 4,000MW to national grid

Lahore: Pakistan has potential to add 50,000 MW electricity to its national grid, said Manager, Technical, Energy Conservation Fund (ENERCON) Engineer Asif Masood. To overcome the present power crisis, he called upon the government to take immediate measures to add minimum of 4,000 MW electricity to the national grid.

Engineer Asif Masood said that oil and gas prices were getting out of reach of the people and the situation had further worsened due to inability of successive governments to exploit hydropower potentials of the country.

He said the new government needed to ensure the hydel projects and build new water reservoirs for agricultural and industrial growth after evolving national consensus without politicising as it had been done in the past. 'Hydro-electricity is the cheapest source of energy and by building small hydel projects in addition to mega dams, the feasibility of which already exist,' he said.

He said the government might have to double the generation capacity by utilising all available resources, including hydel, coal and alternate energy projects, to cater to the demand for coming 10 to 15 years.

'Small hydropower plants (SHP) are an alternative, which have emerged as a desired option, especially for hilly terrains, where natural waterfalls are abundantly available. He stressed the need for small hydropower and mini-hydropower schemes below 1MW, micro-hydro below 100 kw and Pico-hydro below 5kw technologies.

All these technologies could be regarded as small hydropower, he said, adding that micro and pico hydro technologies were used in developing countries to provide electricity to isolated communities where electricity grid was not available, whereas mini-hydro tended to be grid connected. 'In most of the cases, no dams or reservoirs for storage is involved in pico, micro and mini-hydro schemes,' he said.

According to him, major advantage of micro hydro can be built locally at a relatively low cost. For instance, imported turbine sets generating up to 50kw cost approximately 500 dollars to 1,000 dollars per KW, while the local manufacturers offer facilities for turbine manufacturing at 150 dollars to 200 dollars per kW, with marginally reduced turbine efficiencies.

Developing local engineering capabilities and advisory services could reduce the cost of local manufacture further, he said. Unfortunately, he said turbine used by Pakistan Council for Renewable Energy Technology (PCRET) and Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) was manufactured by local workshop, having no design or quality control facilities.

To accelerate the development and enhance the performance of small hydropower in the country, it is imperative to benchmark the work of the SHP industry to identify, understand and adapt the proven best practices of the world leader industries, he said.

As huge potential of hydropower remained yet untapped, there was a great potential for benchmarking in the Small HydroPower (SHP) industry in Pakistan, he added.

Further, decentralised renewable energy systems could also help reduce energy distribution losses and result in system-wide and national efficiency gains, he suggested.

'Renewable energy and greater use of indigenous resources can help diversify the country's energy mix and reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels, thereby mitigating supply disruptions and price fluctuation risks,' he said. 'In addition, costs and risks relating to fuel stocking, transportation and temporary workers and substitute arrangements are also irrelevant for renewable energy systems, except for backup purposes,' he added.

By giving the example PCRET, he said that it had implemented 290 micro - hydropower plants in FATA and in Northern areas with total capacity of 3.5MW, ranging from 3-50kw per plant with participation of local community. 'All of these plants are run-of-river type in the low (four-meter) head range. Similarly, the AKRSP had constructed 171 micro-hydro units