July 16, 2007	Monday	Jamadi-us-Sani 30, 1428

In the wake of devastating rains and floods in Balochistan, which have damaged infrastructure and displaced some 400,000 persons in 12 districts, the need for adequate supply of electricity has become critical for undertaking reconstruction and community development programmes in the affected areas.

While the province is rich in energy resources, like oil, natural gas, coal, renewable energy, etc, its energy needs are generally met -for heating and cooking purposes-- through bio-mass energy like firewood, animal dung and agricultural waste. Due to limited gas supply network, natural gas consumption is extremely low. Regrettably, there are just over three per cent gas consumers in the province though its huge gas reserves have fuelled the national economy since 1950s.

Likewise, only a minority of 7.58 million population has access to electricity; there are only 406,000 electricity consumers and power supply is neither regular nor dependable, resulting in the lowest per capita power consumption --- almost half of the average. Balochistan is the least developed province, with the largest geographical area of great strategic importance.

Coal is the most common fuel for utility and industrial energy generation. Economic factors are in favour of coal utilisation for power generation because of ever-increasing furnace oil prices and depleting gas reserves. Balochistan has proven coal resources of 217 million tons, with measured reserves of over 52 million tons. There are five coalfields; namely Khost-Shahrig-Harnai, Sore Range-Degari, Duki, Mach and Pir Ismail Ziarat-Chamalang, which are well developed today.

Currently, an average of two million tons of coal is being mined annually from these fields that is more than half of the coal extraction at national level. Sadly, more than 90 per cent coal is despatched to other provinces for various uses and applications. The industrial and trade activities have not developed to a satisfactory level.

Additional coal reserves have recently been explored and evaluated. These are located in Loralai and Kohlu districts and Ghazij Basin. The assessment of coal potential and reserve deposits in these areas is being conducted actively at present. The Balochistan coal is generally classified as sub-bituminous to bituminous, and it is considered suitable for power generation.

Wapda had installed a coal-based power plant, consisting of two units of 7.5 MW each, at Sheikhmanda near Quetta in early sixties and operated it successfully for more than twenty years of its lifetime. Nonetheless, at present there is not a single coal-fired power plant in the province worth mentioning.

To meet the projected demand of electricity in Balochistan, it is imperative to develop and use its vast resources of coal for power generation. Due to constraints of existing infrastructure for power transmission and distribution in the area, small sized coal-based power plants may be established at the coalmine-mouths.

Given the conditions, the most economical module of the proposed plants would be six MW to 10 MW capacity each or a series of multiple units of the same size for achieving higher power generation capacity.

Solar power, wind energy and micro-hydro systems are among the various resources for renewable energy. Harnessing of these resources however is insignificant . Balochistan has a long coastline with sizeable wind energy potential.

With average wind speed of 5-7 meters per second, suitable for wind power generation, exists in most of the areas, such as Naushki, Naukundi, Ormara, Turbat, Pasni, Lasbela and Khuzdar. According to the estimate based on available meteorological data, it has the potential to generate at least 400 MW electricity. In fact, wind energy is unlimited.

No serious effort has been made so far to tap the wind energy potential, despite claims made by the Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB). Sometime in the 1990s, a foreign investor, in collaboration with the local companies, had shown interest to set up a wind farm project of total 100 MW capacity. Unfortunately, the project, known as Kinetech Wind Power, for which a feasibility study was also carried out by the sponsors, did not materialise.

To optimise the use of wind energy resource is the need of the hour and should be given due importance by the government and private sector alike. The stand-alone wind-power units connected to isolated systems are better solution since more than half of the Balochistan population is still not connected to the national grid.

Though the total installed power generation capacity in Balochistan is of the size of 2,195 MW - all gas-based thermal power-- the bulk power supply is in fact dispersed to trunk transmission network for utilisation by other provinces. Current power demand of the province is simply in the range of 470 MW, which is met by Quetta Electric Supply Company (QESCO), an entity of the Wapda. The QESCO purchases a total bulk of 380 MW from Uch Power and Wapda's Guddu power station, whereas the balance demand is met by power plants installed by the Wapda recently.

These operational power plants include a 35-MW gas turbine power plant in Quetta, which is connected to the national grid, and two steam-based power plants at Pasni (17 MW) and Panjgoor (38 MW) that are stand-alone units connected to isolated systems. In addition, there are a number of captive power plants, of cumulative installed capacity of 97 MW, that meet industrial requirements.

Power consumption is increasing rapidly, by an average 17 per cent annually. The electricity consumption rose from 1,123 million kWh in 1990-91 to 3,582 million kWh in 2004-05 and the number of consumers increased from 171,000 in 1990-91 to the present level of 406,000, which includes 3,000 industrial consumers.

To meet incremental demand of electricity, which is projected at 1,964 MW by the year 2024, the government is making interim arrangements like importing electricity from Iran that would not ensure reliable and affordable energy in future.

Recently, the government had invited private sector for developing an independent power project (IPP) of about 100 MW capacity thermal power generation, on build-own-and-operate (BOO) basis at Khuzdar. Due to lack of interest shown by the investors, the proposal has been dropped and now the WAPDA will establish the power plant. Understandably, the private sector is reluctant to invest in Balochistan for a variety of factors.

These are: poor law and order situation, remoteness of the area, lack of communication and other infrastructure problems in most of the area, and low return on investment. It becomes imperative for the government to launch various power generation projects without further delay.