Power Sector Inside Out (Part-2)

Installed Capacity and Generation

Electricity in Pakistan is generated by 89 different power plants, owned by Public and Private Sector. Out of these 87 projects, 32 are owned and operated by government of Pakistan (Public Sector Projects), 3 projects are owned by Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission aka PAEC, while the remaining 54 power plants belong to private sector, KEL, PAEC or IPPs.

There are also some other small and captive plants generating electricity for personal use and supplying extra energy to national grid.

Public Sector Projects:

There are 32 public sector projects in the country, consisting 19 hydropower projects and 13 thermal power projects. Total capacity of these public sector projects is 11,731 MW which is 48.13% of the total Installed capacity of the whole country. These Projects generate 44.71 billion kilowatt hours which is 42.35% of the total electricity generation in the country. Following is the detail of Public Sector hydropower projects in country.

Table 2: Public Sector Hydropower Projects

The public sector hydel power projects amount to 28.32% of total installed capacity and 29.98% of total electric generation in year 2013-14. Average capacity factor for hydropower projects in public sector is 52.32%, with Mangla Dam hydropower Project on top of list with 66.99% capacity factor. The most of the capacity (5,061 MW) in the table above is reservoir based with an average capacity factor of 51.77%. Reservoir based projects are 20.76% of total installed capacity and generate 21.76% of total electric generation. Run of River hydropower projects total up to 1,752 MW with a comparatively higher average capacity factor i.e. 54.76%. There are eight projects installed on different canals with total capacity of 89 MW and contribute 278 GWh in the total generation of the country. The average capacity factor of run of canal projects is 35.63%.

There are 13 public sector thermal projects in the country, nine of which are operating under 4 Generation Companies aka Gencos. Total Installed Capacity of public sector thermal projects is 4,829 MW, which is 41.16% of total Public Sector installed capacity. However 239 MW of thermal projects are non-performing and did not generate a single kilowatt hour of electricity during the whole year. Following is the detail of Public Sector thermal power projects.

Table 3: Public Sector Thermal Power Projects

*The plants are not operational now and therefore not included in total installed capacity & other analysis.

The public sector thermal capacity is 19.81% of total installed capacity in the country and 12.37% of total generation during year 2013-14. However the capacity factor remained most dejected averaging 30.84% for all projects. TPS Muzaffargarh and TPS Jamshoro were the only power plants which crossed the 40% capacity factor scale. These two projects account 45.56% of total public sector thermal projects and 62.15% of total generation by these projects. Excluding these two projects, the remaining capacity (2,629 MW) is approximately 11% of total installed capacity in country, however the average capacity factor for these projects remained as low as 21.44% (78.56% capacity could not be utilized). The generation for remaining projects is only 4.68% of total generation of total generation of the country.

More than 96% (4,679 MW) of these projects use Gas as primary fuel which is available for at least 9 months for power generation, however these projects just utilized 31.56% of the installed capacity. There is one Genco (FBC Lakhra), having installed capacity of 150 MW, however the performance this plant remained pathetic as well and it could utilize only 8.52% of its capacity by producing 112 GWh during the whole year.

The capacity factor of thermal power projects is normally higher than hydropower projects because there is less risk of fuel availability. Even if capacity factor of public sector hydropower projects is set as benchmark, the current capacity of public sector thermal power projects effectively reduces to 58.95% i.e. 2,846 MW. If we use the capacity factor of private sector thermal IPPs (58.99%) as benchmark, the effective capacity of public sector thermal projects reduces to 2,525 MW. This hypothesis was made just to explain that where the problem of sector lies. There is no flawless explanation available why these projects are performing so low in comparison to private sector projects. There is a view point that these projects have become old and capacity is derated over time, however as per Power System Statistics 2014, the derated capacity of these projects still amounts to 4,347 MW.

Private Sector Projects:

Private sector power plants supply electricity either to PEPCO system or KEL. All the public sector projects, both hydro and thermal are part of PEPCO system. PEPCO system expands to all over Pakistan except Karachi, where KEL is responsible for generation, transmission and distribution of electric power. PEPCO and KEL systems are interconnected for import and export of electricity from one system to other.

PEPCO System Private Projects:

There are 34 IPPs, with a cumulative installed capacity of 9,043 MW, supplying 44,984 GWh to PEPCO system in year 2013-14. Some other small and captive power producers (SPP/ CPP) also supply excessive output to PEPCO system. The electricity despatch by such SPPs and CPPs amounted to 1,123 GWh during the same period. These private sector projects are backbone of industry and work more efficiently than public sector projects. The installed capacity of these IPPs is 37.10% of total installed capacity of country. With an average capacity factor of 58.16% these projects generate 43.67% of total generation of the state.

Table 4: Private Sector Projects in PEPCO System

Although thermal IPPs constitute 96% of installed capacity and 95% of generation of this group, however it also include hydel and wind power projects. There are five hydropower projects with a cumulative capacity of 214 MW, out of which a project of 1 MW was non-performing during year 2014. The average capacity factor of 54.11%, these hydel IPPs generated 1,015 GWh during the year. Laraib Energy’s 84 MW New Bong Escape hydropower project generated 470 GWh during year with capacity factor of 63.83%, whereas 81 MW Malakand III hydropower project generated 389 GWh utilizing 54.79% of its capacity.

There is one wind power project contributing 106 MW of capacity to national grid, however it’s pertinent to mention here that a capacity factor of 28.30% could be achieved by this project. This is near to average capacity factor of wind power projects in world, however this shows that capacity should not be seen as standalone measure of a country’s sustainability. Energy generated by installed capacity is the main criteria to measure the sufficiency of power for the nation. As described above the 84 MW hydropower project produced 470 GWh during year 2014 and this 106 MW wind project produced only 263 GWh. The Capacity of hydropower project is only 79% of wind power project but energy generated by hydro project is 179% more than the wind power project.

There are 28 large thermal IPPs operating in the country and contributing 35.79% of total installed capacity and 41.40% of total generation of country, with an average capacity generation of 57.16%. Two projects with cumulative capacity of 271 MW (135 MW Japan Power & 136 MW Southern Electric Project) were non-performing during this period. If we take out these two projects from analysis, the net capacity factor goes up to 58.99%.

The 40% of performing thermal IPPs use Furnace Oil (RFO) as primary fuel and cumulatively represent 14.37% of total installed capacity and 19.90% of total generation of country. The average capacity factor is the highest achieved by any group of power projects i.e. 68.40%. The projects using Gas as primary fuel are 52% of total capacity of thermal IPPs, 20.78% of total generation and18.74% of total installed capacity of country. The net capacity factor of gas based thermal power projects resulted 54.80%. There are 50% of thermal IPPs which use High Speed Diesel (HSD) as secondary fuel. With an average net capacity factor of 53.39%, these projects constitute 17.82% of total installed capacity and 19.25% of total generation in the country. Secondary/ Alternate fuel is used only when the gas is not available, normally 3 months a year.

KEL System Power Projects:

KEL or K-Electric Limited formerly known as Karachi Electric Supply Company Limited (KESC) is at present the only vertically-integrated power utility in Pakistan that manages the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity to the city of Karachi. There are 18 large and small power projects connected to KEL system, however only 11 of them were operative and supplied electricity to KEL grid during year 2013-14.

Table 5: Power Projects in KEL System

 The total installed capacity of active projects in KEL system is 11.03% of total installed capacity of Pakistan and 9.72% of total generation during year 2013-14. The net capacity factor could reach to 43.52%, which is almost same as the average capacity factor of Pepco system projects. There are two IPPs with cumulative capacity of 252 MW (124 MW Tapal Energy with capacity factor of 73.41% & 128 MW Gul Ahmed with capacity factor of 51.87%) with total generation of 1,380 GWh during year 2013-14.

There are five active projects owned and operated by KEL itself with installed capacity of 79.39% of total installed capacity in the KEL system and generating 84.91% of total generation by projects in KEL system during year 2013-14. The average capacity factor of projects owned and operated by KEL resulted into 44.48%. The installed capacity of KEL’s own projects is 9.17% of total installed capacity of country and generation by these projects amounted to 8.25% of total generation in the country.

Bin Qasim Thermal Power Station-I is the largest project owned by K-Electric with an installed capacity of 1,260 MW generating 3,766 GWh during year 2013-14 with capacity factor of 34.10%. The project is based on duel fuel technology and accounts 5.17% of total installed capacity of country. However the electricity generated by the project is only 3.57% of the total generation in the country. Korangi Thermal power station, with an installed capacity of 125 MW was nonfunctional and couldn’t contribute a single KWh during the year.

There are eight other thermal power projects connected to KEL system, however four of them were completely non-functional for KEL during year 2013-14. The remaining four have cumulative installed capacity of 209 MW, however with an average capacity factor of 9.44 %, they could produce only 168 GWh during the whole year. A further analysis of these projects show that 169 MW of installed capacity could contribute only 17 GWh during the year implying an average capacity factor of 1.15%.

The statistics above strengthen our argument that the installed capacity alone is not a measure of the worth of power system of a country. A close comparative with above stated 169 MW in KEL system is 164 MW Attock Gen thermal IPP in PEPCO system, which produced 1,243 GWh, with capacity factor of 86.46% during the same period. The policy makers should shift their concentration from megawatts to megawatts-hour to take the country out of darkness. Projects should be shortlisted on the basis of capacity factor, rather than megawatts and costs only.

Nuclear Power Projects:

There are three active nuclear power projects in the country with cumulative installed capacity of 787 MW, generating 4,501 GWh, with an average capacity factor of 57.37%, during year 2013-14. Two of the projects are connected to Pepco system and one is connected to KEL system. The projects connected with Pepco system have installed capacity of 650 MW and generated 4,208 MW, utilizing 73.85% of theoretical capacity. The project connected with KEL system, however, could achieve 24.40% of capacity factor.