Month: September 2020

3 September 2020 (IEEFA Pakistan): Pakistan risks locking itself into building more power capacity than it needs as a result of over-optimistic energy demand growth forecasts that do not take into account the impact of COVID-19, according to a new IEEFA report. Pakistan’s state-owned National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) published its latest long-term power plan – the Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan (IGCEP) 2047 – in April 2020. Report author Simon Nicholas, energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), says the policy document fails…

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The government of Punjab has signed an agreement for the generation of the cheapest solar power in the history of Pakistan. The deal was inked on Thursday, under which private investors will set up a 100 MW solar power plant in Layyah district with a tariff of only 3.7 cents. Punjab Chief Minister, Sardar Usman Bazdar, and Federal Minister for Energy, Omar Ayub Khan, were the chief guests at the signing ceremony of the agreement between the Punjab Power Development Board, Alternative Energy Development Board, and Zhenfa Pakistan New Energy…

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WASHINGTON: Under its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) policy, China is pursuing projects in Pakistan that would decrease Beijing’s reliance on strategic choke points, says a Pentagon report released on Wednesday. The 2020 Pentagon report on China’s military power also shows that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has surpassed the US military in terms of navy size, land-based missiles and advanced air defence systems. A chapter on Beijing’s economic policies notes that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects focus on pipelines and port construction that would “decrease China’s reliance on transporting energy…

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