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KARACHI, Pakistan (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - After suffering decades of electricity shortages that left families and businesses in the dark, Pakistan finds itself with a new problem: more electrical generating capacity than it needs.
Large-scale construction of new power plants - largely coal-fired ones funded by China - has dramatically boosted the country’s energy capacity.
“It’s true. We are producing much more than we need,” Tabish Gauhar, a special assistant to the prime minister on power, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone.
But even as supply surges, electric power is still not reaching up to 50 million people in Pakistan who need it, according to a 2018 World Bank report, though expansion of tranmission lines is planned.
Pakistan faces an unexpected dilemma: too much electricity bdnews24.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bdnews24.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Currently the country gets 64% of its electricity from fossil fuels, with another 27% from hydropower, 5% from nuclear power and just 4% from renewables such as solar and wind, Gauhar said. The country has already scrapped plans for two Chinese-funded coal plants - but another seven commissioned as part of the sweeping China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project have gone ahead, and are expected to add up to 6,600 megawatts of capacity to the grid.
Pakistan faces an unexpected dilemma: too much electricity nationalpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nationalpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.