Factories' old machinery blamed for inefficient power consumption

Director General (Management and Conservation) of Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) Tahir Basharat Cheema said on Friday highly obsolete machinery installed at factories was resulting in inefficient consumption of energy in the Pakistan.
Similarly, 50 million home appliances, installed during the last four years, were also is resulting in inefficient usage of energy and the government was formulating standard specifications under the banner of National Energy Conservation Council to address these issues.
Speaking at the Meet-the-Press programme at Lahore Press Club, Cheema said majority of the machinery, installed at factories, was over 17-year old, and added at that time there was no concept of energy efficiency. Since the energy efficiency concept got popular in 2000, therefore, it was not easy to replace the existing industrial infrastructure overnight, he said, and added that the obsolete machinery was increasing cost of each unit of the industrial sector.
According to him, the Pepco has took up the issue with chambers of commerce and industry, and urged the businessmen to take measure for gradual replacement of machinery at their units. "With any such replacement, if the system is able to save 500 MW, it can keep many tubewells, homes and factories functional in the country," he suggested. He said the Pepco was taking different measures to conserve energy in the country.
According to him, the number of tubewells running on energy is 250,000 against 750,000 tubewells running on diesel. "Those running on power are consuming 1100 MW to 1800 MW electricity in average and a good volume of energy can be saved if conservation measures are adopted," he added.
Cheema said some 19 new power plants would be operational by the end of current calendar year that would add 3500 MW electricity to the system. Similarly, he said, the energy audit of power plants suggested that improving the plants efficiency could increase the production capacity of 309 MW electricity. He said the Pepco was working on increasing production capacity of one block of Guddu power station to increase its capacity from 250 MW to 800 MW.
He said a delegation of World Bank had visited the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) to extend financial support on up-gradation of Guddu power station. He said none of the Wapda employees was getting free electricity and the Wapda paid bill against the consumption of electricity by its employees up to a certain limit. "Anyone crossing his prescribed limit is charged accordingly," he said, adding: "A proposal of magnetisation of all bills is under consideration of the authority."
He said the Wapda's total losses, including technical and administrative, were 20.5 percent. The losses of five discos are equal to the international standards while the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) losses were to the tune of 43 percent.
He said Pakistan had been following the load suppression model since from day one because of the energy crisis, and added that the Wapda had registered 39,750 FIRs on power theft cases and the Wapda was going to reward the informer of power theft cases.
Cheema, however, admitted that the customers' care service of the Wapda was not up to the mark and it required immediate overhauling. He said three pilot projects were under way at Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) to deal with the problem and automatic meter reading system was being introduced to minimise the power theft. According to him, 173,000 customers had defaulted during the last nine months and they had adjusted their securities before defaulting on monthly bills. Majority of them was the domestic consumes, he added.