LAHORE: Experts at a consultative meeting by the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) at Wapda House on Friday urged the government to prioritise the power generation plans with the available indigenous resources so as to lower the electricity tariff for the public.

They supported planning and execution of power generation and transmission projects under an integrated approach after the load forecast.

“Experts from both public and private sectors said the way forward is to balance the energy mix by keeping the hydel generation projects on top followed by coal-fired and then the renewable energy schemes -- wind and solar,” said one of the participants, who preferred anonymity.

The expert said the NTDC had already engaged various consultants to carry out studies on the issue.

The participants learned that the load forecast would be 25,000 to 26,000 megawatts (MW) by the next year, about 28,000MW by 2020 and 40,000MW by 2025.

“The load forecast is top of the agenda. The officials shared data (from 1994 to date) on power generation and capacity, transmission, supply system and its capacity. All participants unanimous on tapping local resources and minimising dependence on imported fuel,” an official told Dawn.

According to a press release by a spokesman for the NTDC, Managing Director Dr Fiaz A Chaudhry said: “We all are connected with the power sector of Pakistan and there is a need to share the load forecast and generation planning of NTDC with the players of this sector. Being a team member, we have to review and assess that how the demand is growing and what capacity we are going to have so as to address the energy crisis properly to help the government in eliminating the menace of load shedding from the country.”

The participants agreed that such discussions will help in assessing the actual load forecast in order to devise and plan action for future needs by all concerned. They also agreed that to think alike and evaluate the modus operandi especially the one which is in the better interest of the country. Hence it was decided that all stakeholders would share their input with NTDC through email which will be taken into considerations to build the mutual consensus of NTDC and power industry.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2017