Pakistan Hydro Power Sector

Future and Challenges

Electrical energy crises are one of the major issues in Pakistan where the citizens of urban
area have to face 10 to 12 hours of blackouts while the rural areas bear with 14 to 20 hours of
blackout. The root cause behind this massive blackout is immense shortage of electrical
power which ultimately arises from the lack of water resources in the country.

Today, the current demand for electrical power is approximately 15000 MW which will reach
49,078 MW till the end of 2050. Pakistan’s electrical supply companies are unable to meet
these demands that is why they are searching for alternate ways of fulfilling this demand. One
of the best options to overcome the shortage of electricity is development of small hydro-
power plants. Pakistan is a blessed country with more than 60,000 MW of hydroelectrical
resources out of which 11% are already producing 7228 MW of electrical power. It has been
researched that the rising crises of electricity shortage can be overcome by installing
hydropower plants.

Future Prospects and Benefits of Installing Hydropower Plants

There are numerous benefits of using hydropower plants, let’s have a glance;

 Installing hydropower plants can save 120 million of coal or 83.3 billion liters of oil
annually
 Hydropower plants are environmental -friendly and have least contribution in global
warming
 Installation of HPPs can offer employment opportunities to the jobless
 SHPP have been providing 33MW of electricity to electrify 0.7 million people living
in the remote area of Pakistan.
 Hydro-power costs only 2.5 PKR / KWH which is cheapest as compared to other
resources

Conventional Energy Sources for Electrical Power Generation

 Figure 1 Constituents of Conventional energy resources

According to an estimate, there is abundance of renewable energy resources in our country

which can be used to generate electrical energy. Shortage in conventional energy resources
depicts that Pakistan should rely more on renewable energy resources. Electricity generated
from hydropower resources in Pakistan can be seen in the below figure;

Figure 2 Hydro- electric production in Pakistan

It has been estimated that hydropower contributes approx. 30% of electric power generation
where major contribution of resources is made by river Indus i.e., 66%.

Hydro-Power Development till 2020

 Plan Capacity No. of Span of Cost Expected
(MW) Projects Project (Rs. Revenue/Annum
(Years) Billion) (Rs. Billion)

Short 56 3 3 12 2
Term

Medium 600 8 5 130.9 18

Term

Long 1500 13 10 187.96 54

Term

Total 2156 24 331.3 74

Challenges Faced in Installing SHPP

The delay in the propagation of installing SHPPs is caused due to the following barriers;

 No planned strategy and regulatory framework for installing SHPP

 Lack of funding, absence of stabilized economic growth
 Dissimilar Political Policies of different Governments
 Unavailability of authentic data on current status of hydro resources
 Opposition and social challenges created by the local communities
 Pakistan’s climate change treaties are under continuous threat
 Last but not the least, trans-boundary challenge is one of the huge barriers in the
installation of SHPPs.

Conclusion

Hydro-power is the cheapest way of generating electrical energy which is zero-impact on

global warming. There are numerous hidden stocks of renewable energy resources in
Pakistan so need of the day is to re-align research work in this prospect and do wise
investment in the SHPPs because they are the future of Pakistan’s electrical energy
production.