Daily Times

Remaining true to its reputation of service delivery, the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in its first year added more than 3,000 megawatts of electricity to the national grid.

Since assuming office on April 11 2022, the prime minister had taken major strides to fulfill his responsibility to put Pakistan on the path to energy independence.

In a year, he inaugurated five important power projects, adding 3150 megawatts of energy to the national grid to meet the rising energy needs of the country. Pakistan’s energy needs surge substantially in summer and the demand and supply gap widens to thousands of megawatts.According to figures from the Ministry of Energy, in August last year, the electricity demand peaked at 28,000 megawatts against the supply of 20,500 megawatts.

The present government is focused on developing indigenous energy resources like coal to stave off the power crisis in the summer.

During his visits to Sindh in the past months, the prime minister inaugurated three 1980 megawatts coal-based power projects in Tharparkar. The projects were completed with Chinese cooperation under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.

The projects included 330 megawatts power plant of Thar Energy, 330 megawatts Thal Nova power plant at Mithi and 1320 megawatts Shanghai Electric Power Plant in Thar. The coal-fired power plants will generate about 15 billion units of low-cost electricity every year.

The government is keen to exploit Thar coal deposits of 175 billion tonnes, and according to energy experts if properly utilized these reserves will be sufficient to fulfil the country’s electricity needs for the next 300 years.

The government is considering gradually shifting the country’s coal-based power plants to Thar coal, in the process putting an end to dependence on costly imported coal.

In February this year, the PM also inaugurated K-3 the third unit of the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant which will produce 1,100 megawatts of electricity.

Experts say Pakistan has an untapped hydroelectricity potential of 60,000 megawatts.

Taking a step towards hydropower development, in December 2022, the prime minister launched the two refurbished units of the Mangla power station. The units were upgraded with the financial assistance of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), adding 70 megawatts to the transmission system.

Pakistan has an annual energy import bill of $ 27 billion and it urgently needed to develop its alternative domestic sources of energy including solar, wind, hydel and nuclear to counter the issue of alarming current account deficits.

Pakistan’s energy sector at present heavily relied on oil and gas imports.

The Shehbaz government has taken significant steps to reduce this dependency and move towards local clean energy sources.

First the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) in April signed with the government a US$240 million loan agreement to support Pakistan’s Mohmand Multipurpose Dam Project (MMDP).

Then this month the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) also approved the Diamer Bhasha Hydro Power Generation Project (DBPGP) at a cost of over Rs. 1.2 trillion.

The Sharif government has already secured the cooperation and investment of Chinese companies which are engaged in the construction of these two major hydro projects in Pakistan, to help it in overcoming power shortages with low-cost and sustainable energy.