Comment by Riaz Haq on January 20, 2013 at 9:23am

Here's ET on promotion of biogas in Pak rural areas:

ISLAMABAD:

The Pakistan Council of Renewable Energy Technologies (PCRET) has installed more biogas plants in rural areas, under a project of development and promotion of biogas technology for meeting domestic fuel needs of rural areas and production of bio-fertiliser.

“We can meet about 30% of the cooking requirements of rural masses from this source of energy [biogas] alone,” said an official privy to the matter.

He said the completion of the project will help protection of forests, environment and bio-diversity, and will provide soot-free fuel to meet domestic energy needs, a cleaner atmosphere, protection from eye-cataracts and respiratory diseases and bio-fertiliser.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/495108/alternative-energy-more-biogas-p...

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 24, 2013 at 10:00pm

Here's PakistanToday on nuclear power expansion in Pakistan:

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) envisages production of 8,800 MW by the year 2030 through nuclear power reactors. Two nuclear power plants, 340MW each, are under construction at Chashma and expected to be commissioned by 2016 with Chinese assistance. Construction of these power plants became possible after a long-standing agreement, while three other nuclear power plants already commissioned in the country are performing well. According to official sources, the allocation for PAEC is almost 11% of the total federal development budget estimated at Rs 360 billion for the financial year 2012-13.
Officials said a major chunk of the PAEC budget has been allocated to two nuclear power plants.
“An amount of Rs 34.6 billion has been set aside for Chashma Nuclear Power Plants, C3 and C4. The total cost of these two projects is Rs 190 billion which will be partially funded by a Rs 136 billion Chinese loan.
The government has so far spent Rs 62.4 billion on the mega project having a 660 MW generation capacity. With Rs 34.6 billion additional spending, the government will be able to complete almost half of the work by June 2013, an official said. According to an official in Ministry of Science and Technology, government is harmonising the efforts made in the energy sector by different ministries, departments and research centres by creating an ‘Energy Council’ with heads of relevant organisations. The council will be entrusted to advise on priority areas for Research and Development (R&D) and management of resources and to fill the gaps.
Acquisition of technology for building nuclear power reactors through R&D, as well as transfer of technology agreements is also in consideration, he said.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/01/24/news/profit/paec-to-prod...

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 25, 2013 at 8:11pm

Here's a summary of BMI report on Pak power sector:

Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/03/2013 -- BMI View: In spite of chronic and persistent power shortages, reflecting under-investment and system inefficiencies, Pakistan has a plethora of potentially varied and rich power options from which to choose. There is vast untapped hydro and renewables capacity available, but it remains to be seen if the investment will actually materialise. Thus, this is likely to increases the country's reliance on growing its gas-fired, coal-fuelled capacity, as well as its modest nuclear programme, although controversial import deals with Iran could cause political backlash. While these opportunities exist for the thermal generation, delays in payments by state-owned transmission companies to independent power producers limit the profitability of the sector, and could cap its growth.

View Full Report Details and Table of Contents

The country continues to suffer from a shortfall of electricity of more than 3 gigawatts (GW) daily, and while this has fallen from the highs of 7GW, permanent resolutions and solutions to the situation remain out of sight. While the shortfall is caused by poor performance from existing generating assets, the lack investment in generating capacity, and an inefficient grid, the government also faces difficulty in sustaining subsidies. This, in turn, drains the profitability of power generation companies, forcing them to cut back on much-needed investment in the sector.

The key trends and recent developments in the Pakistani electricity market include:

- The constructions of the various dams have met with increasing environmental concerns and financing issues, which threaten to stall works. In particular, the World Bank and other international aid agencies have withdrawn their support for the Diamer-Basha dam project due to environmental concerns raised by India. Given the growing demand for electricity, a delay in the completion or cancellation of the project could mean ,the electricity shortfall is likely to persist beyond the government's original timeline.
- Progress of talks between India and Pakistan regarding the sale of electricity and petrol remains slow, with Indian officials citing their Pakistani counterparts keeping a cautious stance. While several suggestions have been raised during the talks, including building of a pipeline directly to Lahore, the Pakistan government remains wary of issues such as security and dependability of oil imports from India. However, worsening energy shortage in Pakistan may push Pakistani authorities to push ahead with negotiations, although imports from India are unlikely to exceed supplies from Kuwait.

http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/recently-released-market-study...

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 31, 2013 at 9:34pm

Here's PakistanToday on primary energy consumption in Pakistan:

KARACHI - Pakistan’s gas requirements are growing hastily, while the domestic gas production is not growing at the same pace. Primary energy consumption in Pakistan has grown by almost 80pc over the past 15 years, from 34 million tons oil equivalent (TOEs) in 1994/95 to 60 million TOEs in 2010/11 and has supported an average GDP growth rate in the country of about 4.5pc per annum.

Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan (CRCP) in collaboration with Citizens’ Voice Project hold policy dialogues on “Role of Government and Regulators in the Gas Sector of Pakistan” with parliamentarians, policy makers, regulators and civil society organisations here on Wednesday.

CRCP recommended Effective Governance & Regulation for development of Gas Policy in dialogue.

The present natural Gas crisis clearly indicates that overall governance of the gas sector needs improvement. The growing energy shortages have made life difficult for Pakistanis across the board. The quality of life of citizens has deteriorated.

Dialogue reported that economic growth rates have been stunted, and industry and agriculture have suffered. The Government of Pakistan has not yet recognising magnitude of crisis and its effect on the people and the economy. Government has to take emergency measures to address, manage and reduce the impact of crisis. The reasons for present crisis in gas sector have both technical and governance aspects.

The dialogues have given comprehensive insight into the current situation of transparency, public participation and accountability processes in gas sector of Pakistan. The intervention is likely to result in enhanced understanding of the sect oral issues for the stakeholders.

Most important of all, it is expected to inform the policy makers and especially the public representatives about the governance situation of the sector and shall persuade them to take positive actions for sectoral improvement. In Pakistan, industrial and fertilizer sectors are getting gas on subsidised rates, while the CNG stations were being subjected to an exorbitantly high tariff regime, neglecting the general public’s interest. The gas consumers’ woes could not be resolved unless Pakistan had an autonomous regulator free of political interference. Besides, the problems could not be resolved without improving people’s access to information, putting in place a system of strict penalties on consumers involved in gas pilferage and non-payment of gas bills

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-onli...

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 22, 2013 at 9:10am

Here's an APP report on Chinese nuclear plants in Pakistan:

Two nuclear power plants, 340 MW each, are under construction at Chashma and are expected to be commissioned by 2016, with Chinese assistance.
Construction of these power plants became possible after a long-standing agreement, whereas three other nuclear power plants already commissioned in the country are performing well.
According to official sources, a major chunk of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) budget has been allocated to the two plants. PAEC envisages production of 8,800 MW by the year 2030 through nuclear power reactors, sources added.
“An amount of Rs 34.6 billion has been set aside for Chashma Nuclear Power Plants, C3 and C4. The total cost of these two projects is Rs 190 billion which will be partially funded by a Rs 136 billion Chinese loan,” said a source.
The government has so far spent Rs 62.4 billion on the mega project having a 660 MW generation capacity. With Rs 34.6 billion additional spending, the government will be able to complete almost half of the work by June 2013, an official said.
According to an official in the Ministry of Science and Technology, the government is harmonising efforts made in the energy sector by different ministries, departments and research centres by creating an Energy Council including heads of relevant organisations.
The council will be entrusted to advice on priority areas for Research and Development (R&D), management of resources and filling existing gaps.
Acquisition of technology for building nuclear power reactors through R&D and transfer of technology agreements is also in consideration, the official said.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/02/22/news/national/two-nuclea...

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 2, 2013 at 5:10pm

Here's a Time Magazine article on Enernet---the use of information technology(IT) and Big Data in power grids:

Cutting energy waste is first and foremost a data challenge. You can’t cut waste until you know what you’re wasting, and most of us have only the slightest idea. Standard electricity meters take one reading for an entire month. Imagine trying to diet if all you knew was the total amount of food you ate every four weeks. Says Bennett Fisher, CEO of the building-efficiency start-up Retroficiency: “You need data to make energy saving work.”

We’ve got the data, thanks to the growth of smart, Internet-enabled sensors that can read and relay energy use almost in real time. A host of new big-data companies are figuring out how to crunch that information so energy users from huge factories to individual households can track and reduce waste. This combination of energy technology with the Internet–the industry calls it the Enernet–is the hottest sector in clean tech, in part because it relies on relatively cheap, easily scalable software rather than on the expensive factories needed for, say, making solar panels. “It’s much more capital-efficient,” says Roy Johnson, CEO of EcoFactor, an energy-management start-up.

And efficiency is what the Enernet is all about. Take Virginia-based Opower, one of the oldest and most successful Enernet companies. Opower began by offering homeowners the chance to compare their power use with their neighbors’. Just knowing whether they were energy hogs or energy saints–along with following Opower’s energy-efficiency tips–was enough to reduce waste among homeowners. But as smarter meters taking dozens of readings per day have begun to gather more-granular data, Opower has been able to offer much more. The company sorts through the data collected by smart meters to help customers identify exactly where the waste is occurring and how it can be reduced. “These are things we could never do without big-data analytics,” says Dan Yates, CEO of Opower.

For utilities, big data can be even more powerful and valuable for the bottom line. Smarter energy management can keep overloaded grids running and prevent the need for new, expensive plants. Energy use isn’t constant throughout the day or the year, but because utilities keep power running 24/7, they need to have spare capacity to accommodate spikes. Even if it isn’t needed all the time, that extra power has to be generated, usually by polluting and costly coal or gas plants. Companies like AutoGrid help utilities spread out the demand for energy, smoothing the spikes and reducing the need for unused excess power. AutoGrid’s algorithms sort through the petabytes of data from smart meters–adjusting for variables like weather–and spit out solutions that let utilities and their customers automatically shift nonessential electricity use to nonpeak times. The Enernet can also help utilities make better use of wind and solar power, compensating when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining. Amit Narayan, AutoGrid’s CEO, estimates that his company’s algorithms can help utilities get about 30% more power out of existing resources.

If we’re ever going to truly clean up our electrical grid, we’ll need to replace coal and natural gas with zero-carbon sources like solar or nuclear while improving efficiency. It won’t be easy or cheap. But a smarter, more efficient grid–enabled by the same intelligence that brought us the Internet–can help smooth that transition.

http://business.time.com/2013/03/28/smart-power/

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 14, 2013 at 10:34am

Here's a piece on Pakistan's energy crisis:

Energy and Security: Natural Gas and the Example of Pakistan
By Paul Sullivan,
Georgetown University
I recently got a question the other day about Pakistan. It is having a serious electricity crisis. One of the solutions proposed to me was that a pipeline be built from a neighboring country, Iran, which has a lot of natural gas in order to fuel the power stations of this South Asian state.
Fuel is not enough.
The electricity generating stations in Pakistan need to be better maintained. Many plants are simply not running due to bad maintenance. More people need to be paying their electricity bills. The pricing of electricity needs to be more rational. Without the right amount of payments coming into an electricity company, even if it is a public sector company, the company cannot remain solvent and well run for long. Pakistan’s electricity is produced by two public sector utilities and about 20 plus independent power producers.
Part of the problem with this in some developing countries is that in the villages and even the large cities one can see thousands of “informal” wires being connected from the electrical poles to houses and businesses without any meters (or even safe connections, but that is another story). Income losses from essentially stolen electricity are gigantic.
Pakistan’s electricity demand growth of about 10-11 percent per year is overwhelming its supply of electricity.
About 55 percent of Pakistan’s people use biomass, such as cow dung, other agricultural waste, garbage and more to heat, cook, etc. These people will likely have an increasing want for electricity connections in the future. Pakistan will not develop even near to its potential if this huge proportion of its population is not connected with electricity, either on a grid or via distributed energy systems at the village and town levels.
These distributed systems could use the vast wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable energy resources available, but severely underutilized in the country. Setting up distributed power systems in villages and small towns could also prove to be a lot cheaper than extending Pakistan’s often shaky and overused grid....

http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/?p=4213

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 22, 2013 at 10:59pm

Here's a Dawn story on Saudi help for incoming Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to overcome energy crisis in Pakistan:

ISLAMABAD, May 22: With an ‘amiable’ government in place, Saudi Arabia is expected to extend a bailout package of about $15 billion to Pakistan’s highly indebted energy sector by supplying crude and furnace oil on deferred payment to enable it to resolve the chronic circular debt issue.

A senior government official said the Saudis had been taking reasonable interest in helping out the incoming PML-N government led by Nawaz Sharif.

They had extended a similar special package to Pakistan soon after it went nuclear in 1998 and faced international economic sanctions.

Between 1998 and 2002, Pakistan received $3.5 billion (Rs190 billion at the exchange rate at that time) worth of oil from Saudi Arabia on deferred payment, a major part of which was converted into grant.

According to the official, as soon as the PML-N emerged as the majority party after the May 11 elections, the Saudi ambassador in Islamabad sought a briefing on the country’s oil requirements from the foreign ministry before calling on prime minister-designate Nawaz Sharif in Raiwind, Lahore.

He was immediately provided a position paper, the official said.

Pakistan expects about 100,000 barrels of crude oil and about 15,000 tons of furnace oil per day from Saudi Arabia on deferred payment for three years. The amount involved works out at about $12-15bn.

The facility can be utilised to reduce loadshedding in the short term and provide an opportunity in the medium term to restructure the power sector by minimising subsidies, eliminating circular debt, ensuring recovery from the public sector and reducing system losses to bring it to a self-sustainable level.

“During the package period, the PML-N government can resolve the electricity crisis and develop hydropower projects through a combination of public and private investments and bagasse-based power production by the sugar industry,” he said.

He said the arrangement for oil supplies on deferred payments could be further discussed during Mr Sharif’s first visit to Saudi Arabia soon after assuming the office of prime minister early next month.

Pakistan’s total crude oil import is about 400,000 barrels per day and 30,000 tons of furnace oil. Its total oil import bill stands at about $15bn per annum.

The official said a request for 100,000 barrels of oil and 15,000 tons per day of furnace oil had already been passed on through the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Joint Ministerial Commission.

A meeting of the commission could be convened soon after the new government assumed charge, an official said.

The Saudi rulers had not taken any interest in the issue earlier ostensibly because of the chill in their relationship with the PPP government.

Large political delegations taken to Saudi Arabia by the PPP government were cold-shouldered, an official said, adding that warming up of diplomatic relations with Iran and the UAE and cancellation of hunting facilities for Saudi royals had also annoyed the kingdom.

The official said the breathing space provided by the likely Saudi package could also be used for renegotiating gas price with Iran for the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline to bring it down to a sustainable level.

Under the gas sales and purchase price agreement, any party may seek revision of the rates in view of the cost of alternative import options one year ahead of the first gas flows scheduled to take place in December 2014.

The official ruled out any possibility that the Saudi oil package could be used to persuade Pakistan to stay away from the Iranian gas import. He said the project had reached an advanced stage and involved international agreements and, therefore, backtracking was no option, but the development could give leverage to Pakistan to secure lower gas prices.

http://beta.dawn.com/news/1013070/15-billion-saudi-bailout-likely/

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 28, 2013 at 6:48pm

Here's a report on the outline of Nawaz Sharif's govt's energy policy:

Pakistan's federal government released a new energy policy that promises new investments in the power generation sector to address power outages.
According to the new policy, Pakistan will increase its power generation capacity to a total of 26,800 MW over the next 3 years. The country currently can generate about 21,100 MW, mostly from fossil fuels and hydropower.
At the same time, Pakistani policymakers are looking to reduce the production costs of electricity.

Pakistan's rolling blackouts can last nearly a 24-hour period and affect as many as 180 million people at a time, according to reports.
Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, will formally announce the implementation details of the energy policy at a joint session scheduled July 29.
The policy will consist of four key points, including reducing demand and supply differences, keeping consumer prices low, investing in the energy sector and preventing electricity theft.

http://www.utilityproducts.com/articles/elp-archives/2013/06/new-pa...

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 28, 2013 at 7:02pm

Here are details of PPL-Orion off-shore drilling deal in Pakistan:

Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) and Orion Energy have signed an agreement for undertaking a joint study on the prospects of offshore exploration and will invest millions of dollars in drilling and set up a power plant that will receive gas from Kandhkot gas field.
PPL Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Asim Murtaza and Orion Energy CEO and Director David M Thomas signed documents here on Friday.
British High Commissioner to Pakistan Adam Thomson and Pakistan Britain Trade and Investment Forum Executive Director Nadim Khan were also present on the occasion.
PPL and Orion Energy, headquartered in Singapore with a representative office in the UK, have planned to conduct the study in Indus and Makran offshore areas to determine the hydrocarbon potential there.

They will constitute different teams and earmark resources for the study, which is expected to take around four months. Following the identification of prospective areas, further exploration may get under way.
Later, technological partners may be brought in for state-of-the-art data acquisition, processing and identification of potential structures and reservoirs. Subsequent to the study, further exploration and production may require investments of around $100 million.
According to a statement, they will also form a special purpose company for establishing a 20 to 25-megawatt power plant and the capacity will be enhanced to 250MW.
In his welcome address, British High Commissioner Adam Thomson said, “Today’s signing is another step towards the UK and Pakistan’s ambitious, joint trade and investment targets. This is a clear signal from UK companies of their wish to do business in Pakistan with Pakistani partners in the energy sector.”
He said investment by any UK company in Pakistan’s energy sector had great importance to the British government. “Two years ago, the prime minister of Pakistan and the British premier mutually agreed to bring the volume of investment and trade to around $2.5 billion by 2015,” he said.
Thomson was of the view that both the countries were following the right track of cooperation and they could do and should exceed the set investment target because both were natural business partners and were already working together in almost every sector of the economy.
In Europe, he said, British companies were leading in supplying energy technology, both in traditional and alternative energy.
Talking briefly about his company, PPL MD Asim Murtaza said PPL was a frontline player in Pakistan’s energy sector with 71% government shareholding in the company. It produces 186,000 barrels of oil per day and covers 24% of energy needs of the country.
According to Murtaza, so far 17 offshore exploration attempts have failed, discouraging exploration companies, but the PPL-Orion initiative has revived hopes.
About exploration work in Makran region, he said geology of the region was very complex, requiring the use of state-of-the-art technology, which Orion Energy has. At a later stage, exploration activities in Makran will be extended to Indus Delta.
Murtaza said Kandhkot gas field could supply 200 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of gas, but Guddu power plant was receiving only 100 mmcfd.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/569800/joint-venture-ppl-orion-energy-t...

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