This was stated by the Chairman of Nepra, Lieutenant General Saeed-uz-Zafar (Retd) while speaking as a chief guest at the first anniversary celebration of Energy Update here on Friday.
He said, "We will give them (captive power) the permission to sell this energy or use it for their industrial needs to reduce burden from national grid and cater electricity shortfall." "Presently the electricity losses loom between 27 to 42 percent, of which the transmission loss is only at 8 percent while rest is power theft," he pointed out.
He hinted that per unit cost of electricity is likely to shoot-up to Rs 15 per unit in future due to high power tariffs. Saeed said, "We are importing oil for consumption and for last few years we are discussing about gas import from various options and now we are planning to import electricity from Iran."
He said why should we enhance oil and gas explorations as our country have huge reserves of fossil fuel to meet the country's growing demand. Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) Lieutenant General S. M. Amjad (Retd) said, the outstanding amount of power utility on city's consumers is Rs 20 billion, excluding government departments. Only Rs 3 billion bills were disputed, he maintained This was due to our weak recovery system that would not able to collect pending outstanding, he said, adding that the government should made legislation for dues recoveries.
"There is a communication gap between the KESC and the consumers and we have to tell truth whether someone likes it or not," he added. He said, power demand of the city stand somewhere at 3000MW, of which the corporation and IPPs were generating 1600MW. The shortfall meet through Wapda's supplies, which meet our demands, he added.
The city witnessed before the hot summer a demand of 2350MW and it is likely that the demand would further increase, he observed. Abdul Haseeb Khan said, the private sector is able to invest in power generating plants of 500MW, if the federal government provide guarantee of investment and generation purchase.
The Managing Director of Asia Petroleum Limited, Naved Alam Zubairi said, only 55 percent of population has access to electricity, while 22 percent receiving piped gas. The Pakistan is extremely low energy intensity economy of 14 MMBTU per capita per annum.
He said, the substantial energy injection is required for lifting the general standard of living especially if we do not want to sustain growth rate. The gas distribution system is exhaustive but rising demand and declining fields make expansion of further distribution system infeasible, he added. Demand indigenous supply gap of energy will keep on steadily increasing creating more and more room for imports, he pointed out.
As far as primary energy supply of concerned, the country cater about 80 percent and the long term goal is to create a competitive, efficiently run, financially and largely viable privatised oil and gas sector, he added. Primary energy demand for next 15 years is expected to grow at 6 percent. In 2020 annual energy requirement would be 130 MM TOE from existing 57.85 MM TOE.