Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The country’s total electricity generation capacity has increased by 11.5 percent during July-April 2022 and stood at 41,557 MW from 37261 MW during July-April 2022 as compared to last fiscal year 2020-21.

According to the Economic Survey 2021-22 unveiled by Federal Minister for Finance Miftah Ismail, Minister of State for Finance Dr Ayesha Bakhs, Minister for Planning, Development Ahsan Iqbal, Minister for Power Engineer Khurram Dastgir in a press conference here on Thursday, the percentage share of Hydel in total installed fuel-wise capacity has marginally reduced to 24.7 percent during July-April FY2022 as compared to its share in FY2021.

The contribution of RLNG in the installed capacity has increased to 23.8 percent from 19.66 percent.

The percentage contribution of gas has also declined from 12.15 percent to 8.5 percent. However, there is an increase in the percentage share of renewable energy which is a good sign for the economy as well as for the environment.

The percentage contribution of Nuclear has increased to 8.8 percent during July-April FY2022 from 6.68 percent during July April FY2021. The share of wind and solar has increased from 3.31 percent to 4.8 percent and from 1.07 percent to 1.4 percent respectively.

Electricity Consumption:

According to the Economic Survey, the first ten months of the current fiscal year has not seen any major shift in the consumption pattern of electricity. The share of households in electricity consumption has slightly declined from 49.1 percent in FY2021 to 47.0 percent in FY2022. Electricity consumption in the commercial sector has also witnessed a decline and stood at 7 percent in FY2022, down from 7.4 percent in FY2021. However, the share of Industry in electricity consumption has increased to 28 percent during July-April FY2022 from 26.3 percent during July-April FY2021. The use of electricity in the agriculture sector has slightly increased to 9 percent from 8.9 percent. The share of electricity consumption in other sectors, including public lighting, general services and other government traction has decreased to 8 percent from 8.3 percent.

Nuclear Energy:

The capacity of six nuclear power plants (NPPs) has increased this year and its gross capacity stood at 3530 MW that supplied 12,885 million units of electricity to the National grid during 1st July 2021 to 31st March 2022. This shows an increase of 39 percent in terms of MW and 82 percent increase in terms of units supplied.

Last year, the gross capacity of these nuclear power plants was 2,530 MW that supplied about 7,076 million units of electricity to the national grid during July-March 2020-21.

Overall, as many as 13 power generation projects of 11,648 MW are being facilitated by PPIB under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). These include four hydropower projects of 3,428 MW, five Thar-coal based projects of 3,960 MW, four imported coal-based projects of 4,260 MW and a 660 kV High-Voltage

Direct Current (HVDC) Transmission Line Project. Out of these, three imported coal based power projects of 3,960 MW and one Thar coal-based power project of 660 MW have been commissioned, while ±660 kV

Matiari-Lahore HVDC Transmission Line Project has also started operations on commercial basis with effect from 1st September 2021.

Furthermore, another nine IPPs of 7,028 MW which include four hydro IPPs of 3,428 MW, four Thar coal based IPPs of 3,300 MW and one imported coal based IPP of 300 MW are at different stages of processing.

Net Metering:

A total of 10,783 net metering based systems of 196.77 MW capacity were installed by different segments of consumers during July-Mar FY2022. As of 31st December, 2021, the number of net-metering based solar installations had reached up to 17,950 with a cumulative capacity of 305.79 MW