Month: January 2021

ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has recently issued its determination on the applicability of open access charges to consumers and has rejected a petition of the Central Power Purchasing Agency-Guarantee (CPPA-G) in this respect connected with wheeling charges. Buyers or consumer’s choice and competition are the basic tenets of capitalist markets. Under open access, the consumer has a choice of procuring or generating his own electricity. Open access is one of the key instruments for fostering competition, promoting new investments and power supplies, improving capacity utilisation, reducing…

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The interface between construction activity and climate change cannot be disregarded while discussing the role and importance of both these areas in sustainability of economic development. The construction industry and environment or climate change have two-way mutual repercussions. On the one side construction is an industry that has a lot to contribute to the climate change dynamics, negatively or positively depending on the construction techniques, while on the other side climate change impacts the construction industry itself in more than one way. The first and foremost impact of construction is…

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ISLAMABAD: Misaligned and reactive policies have perhaps been the greatest woes for Pakistan’s power sector. Be it the 1994 and 2002 power policies, which rightly incentivised the generation business but failed to build a consumer protection mechanism over the years based on past learnings, or more recently, the proposed changes to the sector’s landscape without effective consultation and impact analysis, potentially benefiting only a handful at the cost of masses, the sector calls for holistic and comprehensive reforms, rather urgently. Revelations made in a 278-page inquiry report on the power sector…

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ISLAMABAD: The Central Power Purchasing Agency and the National Transmission & Despatch Company — both key federal entities — have opposed transmission licence to the Khyber Pakhtun­khwa Transmission and Grid System Company (KPTGC) that seeks to operate about 7300MW of power supply system in the province over a period of five to 10 years. In response to comments sought by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) from stakeholders over the KPTGC’s request for grant of provincial transmission licence, the Punjab government has, however, supported the request while demanding that…

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Recent debates in Pakistan over imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) have remained mostly political rather than professional. Unfortunately, energy czars like Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Nadeem Babar focused on political point-scoring instead of finding solutions. In fact, Pakistan has operated its gas system inefficiently and burnt its scarce molecules rather recklessly for decades. Energy issues remain more basic in nature like the risk of continued shortages, lack of reliability, affordability of gas and sustainability of economic growth largely fuelled by energy. Simply put, we’ve an energy trilemma at hand: security,…

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