Pakistan Energy Situation

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Pakistan

Capital:

Islamabad

Region:

Coordinates:

30.0000° N, 70.0000° E

Total Area (km²): It includes a country's total area, including areas under inland bodies of water and some coastal waterways.

796,100

Population: It is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship--except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum, who are generally considered part of the population of their country of origin.

240,485,658 (2023)

Rural Population (% of total population): It refers to people living in rural areas as defined by national statistical offices. It is calculated as the difference between total population and urban population.

62 (2023)

GDP (current US$): It is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources.

338,368,455,318 (2023)

GDP Per Capita (current US$): It is gross domestic product divided by midyear population

1,407.02 (2023)

Access to Electricity (% of population): It is the percentage of population with access to electricity.

95.00 (2022)

Energy Imports Net (% of energy use): It is estimated as energy use less production, both measured in oil equivalents. A negative value indicates that the country is a net exporter. Energy use refers to use of primary energy before transformation to other end-use fuels, which is equal to indigenous production plus imports and stock changes, minus exports and fuels supplied to ships and aircraft engaged in international transport.

24.12 (2014)

Fossil Fuel Energy Consumption (% of total): It comprises coal, oil, petroleum, and natural gas products.

61.59 (2014)

Source: World Bank

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Overview

This article gives a short overview of the energy situation in Pakistan. It outlines the main sources of energy and states the main problems for the energy sector regarding micro hydropower, solar energy products and cooking technologies for energy access. Furthermore, the institutional set-up, the policy framework and international programmes regarding energy access are portrayed.

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Energy Sector Overview

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan which became an independent state in 1947 is governed by a federal parliamentary constitution. It is globally the sixth most populous country with a population of approximately 200.000 million people and a comparatively high population growth rate of 1.5%. Pakistan is a semi-industrialized economy with a presentable textile, food processing and agriculture base and a per capita GDP of 1561 USD. According to the World Bank, Pakistan has important strategic endowments and development potentials. Its labour market is the 10^th largest globally and Pakistan is number 67 amongst the global exporters. Yet, there is a large inequality within the society (Gini: 30 as per World Bank) and still 21% of the population lives under the poverty line.

Pakistan’s Energy Mix

The primary energy supply amounts to over 70 million Tonnes of Oil Equivalent (TOE). Oil and gas are by far the dominating sources with a share of 80%. Oil is imported from the Middle East mainly Saudi Arabia, gas from Iran. In addition, Pakistan is consuming Liquefied National Gas (LNG), Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and coal. Pakistan has currently, 4 power plants with a total capacity of 755 MW; additional 3 are under construction. Nuclear power accounts for around 1.9% of the total installed capacity in Pakistan. Hydropower has a share of 13% whereas other renewable energies only play a minor role.

The government is supporting the use of LPG for cooking resulting in rapid investment in production, storage and establishment of auto stations of LPG. During the FY 2016, an approximate investment of PKR 2.38 billion has been made in the LPG supply infrastructure whereas total investment in the sector until Feb 2016 is estimated at about PKR 22.33 billion. During the FY 2016, the regulatory body OGRA has issued 12 licenses for operational marketing of storage and filling plants, 37 licenses for construction of LPG storage and filling plants, 20 licenses for Construction of LPG auto-refuelling stations and one license for storage and refuelling of LPG was issued. Further, one license for construction of production and storage of LPG facility is also issued by OGRA which shall result in improving supply and distribution of LPG as well as create job opportunities in the sector.

Energy Sources

Historically, Pakistan has always been an energy importer and is highly dependent on fossil fuels. With the rising fossil fuel prices, the cost of oil importing is creating a dent on Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves. The rising oil price along, withe the rising demand for uninterrupted power, is creating additional pressure on the already fragile electricity grid of Pakistan. Therefore, to met this increasing demand, the Government of Pakistan, in its new budget for the fiscal year 2014-2015,has allocated $340 million to its energy development portfolio. About 80% of this budget will be spent on generating power from solar, biomass and biogas.

About USD 2.3 billion is spend annually on candles, kerosene lamps and battery-powered flashlights by Pakistanis.

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Renewable Energy Sources

Pakistan aims at achieving 5-6% of its total on-grid electricity supply from renewables (excluding large hydropower) by 2030. Total installed power capacity stood at 26 GW at year-end 2016, of which 4.2 % was renewable energy.

Pakistan is blessed with a high potential of renewable energy resources, but so far, only large hydroelectric projects and few wind and solar projects have harnessed this potential. Renewable Energy accounts for 1136 MW presently installed capacity of solar PV, wind and biomass based power projects. Possibilities also exist in promoting greater use of wind, solar and biomass project.

Previously Government of Pakistan (GoP) had announced various policies and enabling environments such as feed-in tariff/upfront tariff, tax incentives, net metering, long term refinancing facility and micro-financing schemes for promoting corporate sector investment in the renewable energy (RE) sector. Taking the market growth, technological developments, recent cost reductions and new financial mechanisms into account, the GoP decided to liberate the market and instigate more competition amongst the private sector players for delivering electricity from RE resources (i.e. wind/solar) at optimal tariff rates. Accordingly, the GoP introduced tenders to call for competitive/reverse bidding for the RE power projects and the first phase of bidding for wind power projects has been initiated.

1. For wind power project, the regulator recently has announced a benchmark levelized tariff as:
   - for 100% foreign financing US cents 6.7467/kWh
   - on 100% local financing,  US cents 7.7342/kWh.
   
2. For solar power projects there is no benchmark tariff announced by the regulator as yet, however the last upfront tariff is provided below.
   

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Figure 1: Revised tariffs for solar projects in 2016

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Wind Energy

Pakistan has a potential for wind energy specially in the southern coast and coastal Balochistan. The wind speed is on average 7-8 m/s at some sites along the Keti Bandar- Gharo corridor.

Particularly in the southern regions of Sindh and Balochistan, the technical potential of wind power is high along the 1,000 km of coastline where wind speeds range between 5 and 7 m/s. The potential capacity for wind energy is estimated at 122.6 GW per year, more than double of the country’s current power generation level. A newly completed wind farm in Gharo, Sindh Province, is one of a series under construction in Pakistan to reduce the country's serious energy deficit.

For more information about wind energy in pakistan, see Wind Energy Country Analyses Pakistan

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Solar PV

The solar potential is estimated to be over 100,000 MW. Pakistan has a high solar potential. Irradiation across the country is around 4.5-7.0 kWh/m²/day.

Figure 2: Direct solar radiation in Pakistan.

• Solar Village Electrification: More than 40,000 villages which are so far from the grid that it becomes costly and uneconomic to extend the grid to these locations are prime candidates for village electrification using Solar Home Systems (SHS).
  
• Solar Water Heaters and Geothermal Heat Pumps: There is a big market for investors for SWH and GHP in domestic and industrial sectors. Only 22% of the population has access to piped natural gas.
• Productive use in agriculture: Solar Powered Efficient Pumps could replace the 260,000 water pumps (tube -wells) with a sanctioned load of over 2,500 MW operated with electricity, and another 850,000 Diesel Water Pumps that consume 72,000 TOE of Diesel annually.
• Street Lights: Pakistan has over 500,000 Street Lights with a sanctioned load of over 400 MW. Most of these Street Lights are based on 80W, 125W and 250W Sodium Lights. They offer opportunities to be replaced with Efficient Solar Lighting.

Biomass

Out of the total area of 79.6 million hectares, 21.2 million hectares are cultivated; Almost 80 percent of the cultivated area is irrigated. The country has the world’s largest contiguous irrigation system. Forests cover 4.21 million hectares, 5% of Pakistan’s total area. According to the FAO data, this number has dropped continuously since the 1990s to only 1.9% in 2015.

“Biomass availability in Pakistan is also widespread. Approximately 50,000 tonnes of solid waste, 225,000 tonnes of crop residue and over 1 million tonnes of animal manure are produced daily. It is estimated that potential production of biogas from livestock residues is 8.8 to 17.2 billion meters³ of gas per year (equivalent to 55 to 106 TWh of energy). Large sugar industry in Pakistan also generates electricity from biomass energy for utilization in sugar mills. Annual electricity production from bagasse is estimated at 5,700 GWh – about 6% of Pakistan’s current power generation level. In the present electricity crisis recently government allowed sugar mills to supply their surplus power up to a limit of 700 MW to the national grid. It is estimated that sugarcane bagasse can potentially be used to generate 2000 MW of electric power. However presently it is difficult to obtain more electricity from sugar mills due to grid limitations because most of the sugar mills are located in remote rural areas which are not even connected to the national grid. Integration of electricity generated from biomass energy to the national grid can ease the electricity shortage in the country.” A large number of people in rural areas in Pakistan depend on forests for their livelihood, fuelwood and shelter. Many use the forests in unsustainable ways to satisfy their domestic energy needs. Therefore, forest depletion and degradation are a major challenge.

Almost all of Pakistan’s Biomass power generation is done in steam power plants, since biomass gasification and newest fermentation technology has not been introduced in the country. The Sugar industry has the highest utilization of biomass, with every singly sugar mill being equipped with a biomass boiler for the production of electricity. Some even incorporate high pressure boilers to increase efficiencies. The “Framework for Power Co-generation’ for bagasse and biomass-based sugar industry projects”, introduced in 2013, is expected to attract 1,500 MW to 2,000 MW in generation in the short term, between 2016 and 2018.

 

Hydropower

Large Hydropower has proved to be the cheapest source of electricity. Despite the high availability of hydro power resources low investments in this sector hamper the utilization of this potential source.

Smaller (less than 50 MW) sites are available throughout the country. The micro - hydropower sector has been relatively well established yet. Since the mid-80s micro-hydro power plants supply electricity to some 40,000 rural families. Most of the plants are community-based and situated in the Northern Areas and Chitral. Small Hydropower is considered as another promising option for off-grid generation of electricity. Provincial governments mainly handled the small hydropower sector: in 2014, 128 MW has been operational in the country, 877 MW is under installation and around 1500 MW is available for further development. The potential for micro hydro (up to 100 kW) is estimated at 350 MW in Punjab and 300 MW in northern Pakistan.

Institutional Set-Up in the Energy Sector

Electricity sector

The electricity market of Pakistan in unbundled at the generation and distribution but is bundled at the Transmission point. The National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) is only responsible for transmission and dispatch of electricity. As of December 2006, there are 16 IPPs investing in Pakistan. .

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Further Information

• Country portal on energypedia
  

References

This article is mainly based on a paper written for the GIZ Pakistan (Energy access situation in Pakistan. Energy sector overview of micro hydropower, solar and cooking technologies, January 2016)