Government has been advised to start process for setting up new Independent Power Producers (IPPs) of 5,000 MW cumulative capacity. This would enable them to be ready for commissioning by the time natural gas starts flowing from Iran Pakistan gas pipeline in December 2014. An official source said minister for petroleum and natural resources Dr Asim Hussain during a recent ECC meeting proposed finalisation of a strategy to develop additional IPPs to utilise gas imports from Iran. Meeting was informed IP gas pipeline, in its first phase, will support power generation of 5,000 MW. It was informed that based on current crude oil price, monthly gas import bill shall be in tune of $200-250 million, which was lowest as compared to other options of HSFO and RLNG. Finance minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh also agreed to this proposal and said there appears to be a significantly less chance that government would not be able to economically use imported gas. It was informed that gas demand of power plants connected with national gas transmission network has increased to more than 700 mmcfd, source added.
Government has already decided to dedicate imported gas through IP pipeline to power sector as power shortage is projected to exceed over 11,000 MW in next few years. Decision was made considering economic feasibility of Iranian gas as compared to price of other alternatives fuels such as furnace oil, LNG and coal. Meeting was also informed that economic impact of alternate fuels indicates that using IP gas will result in average annual savings of $1.2 billion against using RLNG as alternate fuel at crude price of $100 per barrel. Present value of total savings comes to $10.9 billion. Using HSFO as an alternate fuel indicates that IP gas will result in average annual savings of $1.7 billion at crude price of $100 per barrel. Present value of total savings comes to $15.3 billion. Meeting was informed that generation of 11,000 MW by 2020 was not possible through other resources like hydel and wind power as these were time consuming and involved heavy financial costs. It was explained that recent feed-in tariff of wind power generation approved by NEPRA, was nearly 11 US cents per kWh higher than imported gas, while wind mills have an availability of around 30-35 per cent only. In case for hydel based generation there were seasonal fluctuations in availability of hydel power due to availability of water. Source said member of Planning Commission was of the view that while importing gas appears feasible, Pakistan should also simultaneously develop other alternative options such as nuclear power based generation. He mentioned that cost of nuclear energy is currently 5-6 US cents per kWh for existing plants and shall be 8 US cents per kWh for the new plants.
unwise decision by Dr Asim Hussain to allocate imported natural gas from Iran to power plants (IPPS). Rather this gas should be used for other uses than IPP as domestic/ commercial fuel, CNG for transport but again first priority should go for running urea /other fertilizers plants to full capacity, setting up more urea / fertilizer plants and other petrochemical products. Future Power plants should be based on coal, hydro, nuclear, alternative energy etc.
Natural Gas( NG ) best uited for IPPs ( there should be no doubt ) if Coal Tech whenver than coal becomes good for IPPs as well .For Domestic best LPG.
Fertilizer equal in importance with IPPs gets NG spared from domestic .
Hydro to be implemented without delay to bring back or reverse current ratio hydel 30:Fossil70 back to fossil 30:Hydel70
Our Grid system needs to be upgraded to smart grid for Alternative Energy.
Alternative Energy – Wind ( Specifically ) – plus Sloar PV must to be planted / installed to reduce annual fuel bill.
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