Ijaz Kakakhel Islamabad
The federal Cabinet on Monday decided to install only indigenous fuel power plants in future to meet the growing electricity requirements of the country. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chaired the meeting
After cabinet meeting, Adviser on Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Qamar Zaman Kaira during a press conference said an additional 2,000 megawatts were expected to enter the supply grid by the end of the week, which he said would improve the situation.
The minister said: “Inflow has improved in rivers and Tarbela dam is filling up better so it is expected that around 2,000MW of additional cheap electricity from hydel energy will enter the system by the week’s end and reduce loadshedding.” He said monsoon rains had contributed to increasing flow in rivers. The meeting was given a detailed briefing on the current load shedding in the country.
Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said the existing electricity generation capacity is 23900 megawatts whilst the demand reached the historic level of thirty thousand megawatts last month. She regretted the ongoing power projects were delayed by the PTI government.
Minister for Power Khurram Dastgir said that Karot hydropower project of 720 megawatts under the CPEC has now been made operational. He said the cabinet was informed that the projects of 4623 megawatts initiated by the PML-N back in 2013-18 will become operational by next year. He said a total of seven thousand megawatts of electricity will come to the system including from these projects as well as solar power and private net metering by next year which will help address the issue of load shedding.
Referring to the increased inflow of water into Tarbela, he was confident that the electricity production from this source will reach to the maximum of 3500 megawatts in the next few days whilst generation of 1100 megawatts from K-2 nuclear plant will also start in the same period which will help reduce load shedding to a great extent and help provide relief to the people during Eidul Azha.
The Minister for Power said the government is also considering a comprehensive policy on solar energy. He said the focus will be on large scale plants as well as supporting the small consumers to install small plants. He said government buildings will also be converted to solar.
