K-Electric has submitted an investment plan of about 484 Billion for the next 07 years for its Transmission and Distribution Segments in NEPRA, which is more than the investment KE has made in last 17 years, said Sadia Dada – Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at K-Electric while addressing at a seminar “Addressing the Economic, Energy, and Environment (3-Es) Crises: Innovation and Technology Driven Approach” organized by SDPI in Islamabad.
Sadia Dada further added that Karachi’s power demand is growing exponentially and as per the utility’s estimates, its consumer base to expand to the tune of 05 million and power demand to reach at least 5,000 MW by 2030. She commented that through this plan, KE focuses on system reliability, growth in customer base, adoption of technology to drive more efficiency and automation in the process while also adding significant share of renewable energy in its power mix to support the Government’s objectives to reduce the consumption of imported fuel and benefit the environment. Through this plan, KE is eying to achieve its ambition of 30 by 30 which includes increasing the share of renewable energy to the tune of 30%, increasing the consumer base by 30% and also reducing the power outages by 30%.
Dr. Hassan Daud Butt, Senior Advisor and Research Fellow at SDPI in his keynote address highlighted that the interrelation between energy, environment and economy is fundamental to the socio-economic development of the society, especially due to the environment being under immense stress. He stressed on the role of society, behavioral changes and deliberating novel technology and policy solutions as the way forward from the existing crisis.
Muhammad Basit Ghauri, Program Officer, Renewables First said that Pakistan has been struggling to phase the role of private sector and must be given due attention. He stressed on Demand-side Management through innovation to efficiently manage the energy peak load and strengthening the linkages between academia and industry to support innovations driven by industry demand.
Mr. Amer Zia, Chief Distribution Officer, K-Electric stressed that unless access to tertiary energy sources is increased, the efficiency of primary and secondary energy sources must be focused to meet the increasing energy demand. He stressed on enhancing data quality so that robust, efficient and intelligent decisions can be taken. He informed that K-Electric has brought various innovative technologies like smart metering, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), while advanced distribution management systems are also in the pipeline.
Asad Mahmood, EE&RE Expert stressed on the need to establish energy conservation cells across the public and private energy distribution companies to address the energy intensity to resolve the energy crisis. He said as the per capita energy consumption increases, the competition for resources and consequently the cost of energy increases thereby triggering energy poverty in the future as well. He stressed that public energy companies must align standard industrial classification codes with that of Bureau of Statistics so economic activity can be reflected in billing, data collection and industries can be efficiently captured in billing. He stressed that we need to realistically revisit our NDCs to catalyze progress to their achievement as we approach 2030. He emphasized on reducing grid emissions being crucial to accessing international climate finances.
Dr Khalid Waleed, Research Consultant SDPI said that our energy choices are coming at the cost of economy and environment and innovative and technological solutions are at the heart of the triple E crisis. He suggested that Pakistan should negotiate for debt restricting in the form of debt to climate and nature swaps to build adaptation and resilience to climate change, support the transition to clean energy and reduce the national dependency on import fuels.
Mr. Ubaid ur Rehman Zia, Senior Research Associate at SDPI mentioned that Pakistan has been using a “short-sighted” and a “Just in time approach” to address its energy security concerns over the past years. While it did provide some short-term relief for energy supplies, it has led to an economic trap in the form of increasing circular debt (PKR 2.4 trillion in 2022), high-capacity payments, and a limited power evacuated capacity; all that is highly dependent on high cost imported fossil fuels. He further added that in the backdrop of high inflation, increasing interest rates, high supply chain cost, and rising commodity prices; the competitiveness of RE projects against fossil fuels has been impacted. Hence to maintain the cost competitiveness of new renewable energy-based systems, it is critical to de-risk the investments, providing regulatory and policy support, improve credit worthiness for the RE developers and establish clean demand signals
