Pakistan’s power generation saw an increase of 6.6% YoY to 15,680 gigawatt-hours (GWh) during the month of July compared to 14,711 GWh during the same period last year.
The upsurge in power production is mainly due to the low base and higher generation on Furnace Oil (FO), Renewable Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG), Wind, Nuclear, High-Speed Diesel (HSD) and Bagasse.
Hydel, RLNG, Coal, Nuclear, FO, and Gas remained the major contributors of power generation during July’21 with the share of 30%, 20%, 15%, 11%, 10%, and 9%, respectively. While the share of 4%, and 0.8% from Wind, and HSD also contributed to country’s total electricity, respectively.
Cumulatively, during January-July CY21, the power generation reported an upsurge by 11% YoY to clock in at 77,856 GWh as compared to the corresponding period last year. The major contributors were Hydel, Coal, and RLNG during the period with the share of 25.4%, 22.1%, and 19.7%, respectively. While power production through Hydel saw a decline of 8.7% YoY during 7MCY21, noted by Arif Habib Limited.
This acceleration in power generation is primarily owing to the turnaround in economic activities in all of the three major sectors, i.e, services, industry, and agriculture which has eventually pushed the demand for power generation from commercial as well as residential sector.
Recently, Hammad Azhar, Minister for Energy informed via his Twitter handle that, Pakistan has recorded the highest generation & transmission of electricity in the country’s history at 24,467 MW in a single day on August 11, 2021.
In 2020, peak load registered was 23,370 MW for one day & in 2018 it was just 20,811 MW.
The average power demand & supply during these summer months is approx. 20% higher against last year, he added.
On the cost front, the fuel cost for power generation jumped by 51% YoY to stand at Rs6.47/KWh during July’21, mainly attributable to the increment in coal-based cost of generation by 33% YoY to Rs8.41/KWh as coal prices increased by 112% YoY.
Furthermore, Gas-based and RLNG-based costs of generation also surged by 17% YoY to Rs8.17/KWh and 76% YoY to Rs12.06/KWh, respectively. The increased in RLNG based cost was primarily owing to the hike of its price by 91%YoY to Rs 2,069/mmbtu.
However, power production from Hydel and Solar based generation declined by 13% YoY, and 2%YoY, respectively.
