Source: Dawn News

Islamabad: The National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) in a study titled “Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan 2018-40” profoundly analyzed the Power Market dynamics of the country and emphasized on the notion of accelerating efforts towards power generation, terming it has a key determinant of sustainable economic growth. The study further stated that it would be extremely challenging for Pakistan to pace up its economic growth without ensuring a robust power production and supply system in place. Therefore, it has chalked out a comprehensive plan to develop 120 new Power Projects in a bid to add 74,448 Megawatts of production capacity to the system till 2040, mainly from hydel, domestic coal and renewable sources including wind and solar.

In the year 2040, the nominal production capacity in the system will stand at 98,091MW against projected peak load (demand) of 80,425MW, thus down turning the ongoing Demand-Supply Gap in the Power Sector. In 2018, the nominal capacity and demand matched quite closely as the nominal capacity from all generation sources hovered around 27,715MW whereas the demand was close to 26,700MW. In 2019, the gap between nominal capacity and demand is steadily widening and has started surpassing the peak load in the system. It can be observed that a significant surplus of around 17,600MW remains between the projected demand and installed capacity, according to the study.