KARACHI, May 20: The manufacturing and use of inefficient electrical appliances, equipment and machinery could become a cognisable offence if parliament passes the energy conservation bill, said a former environment minister.

Former minister Hameedullah Jan Afridi, who is also the chairman of the Intellectual Property Rights Organisation (IPO), said this at the “Energy Conservation & Efficiency” conference with the theme “save energy for tomorrow” at a local hotel on Thursday evening.

He said that things would be better after the implementation of this law, which was aimed at replacing old electrical equipment and machinery with energy efficient gadgets.

He said that the National Energy Conservation Centre (Enercon), which would come under the Water and Power Development Authority, would be the agent of change with the help of quality certification institutions like PSQCA and Engineering Development Board.

Similarly, there was a plan to ask branded companies to get quality certification to produce energy efficient products, he added.

Referring to the energy audit of Wasa of Lahore, he said inspection had revealed that there was a 40 per cent leakage in their system and all their electric motors were not efficient. Quoting a report, he said that 3,000 megawatts were being wasted due to inefficient appliances, equipment and machinery.

He said that in the middle of the energy crisis, Pakistan had no option but to go for energy conservation as the cost of electricity generation had gone up to $ 3 million for each megawatt and its project implementation was difficult and lengthy.

Kalim A. Siddiqui underlined the need for expediting work on Thar coal projects and provision of infrastructure.

He called for providing maximum gas to power projects to generate electricity.

He said hydel generation had the lowest cost of production of 7-8 paisa per kilowatt, nuclear 50 to 70 paisa per kilowatt, natural gas Rs4.5 to Rs5 per kilowatt while furnace oil Rs15 to Rs16 per kilowatt.

He said rental power projects were costing Rs21 per kilowatt and the country could not afford to buy this costly electricity.

Syed Hassan Nawab, the deputy managing director of the Sui Southern Gas Company, said that the utility was trying hard to reduce its unaccounted for gas (UFG) from eight per cent to five per cent by replacing its entire gas transmission and distribution pipelines network.

Engineer Tahir Salim, the chairman of the Institute of Electrical Engineers (Karachi Centre), said that lighting consumed only 30 per cent of the total electricity, while industry used 70 per cent of power. The loss in the industrial sector was much higher than in household, he added.

He stressed the need for encouraging solar and wind energy for power generation and called for effective energy conservation methods to save energy.