ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Power has directed the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) to resolve issues of industry and businesses including those related to solar net metering.
According to official documents, these directions were issued at a recent meeting of the committee presided over by Senator Mohsin Aziz, who had invited businessmen and industrialists from KPK who filed a public petition against the highhandedness of the Pesco staff.
The chairman was of the view that industrial activity is already very low in the country but in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan due to their peculiar circumstances the industrial activity is dismally low. The chair observed that undue hurdles are being created in these provinces especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
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Maqsood Anwar, former president SCCI, explained that maximum demand of Pesco is 2,700MW and by previous day only 1,096MW electricity was being supplied to it from the national grid due to which there is extensive load shedding, about 60 per cent from which the severity of the situation can be understood. He stated that due to huge load shedding, the industrial consumers decided to shift to solar energy to run their industrial operations but now it has been observed that undue hurdles are being created by Pesco in this regard. He stated that almost seven to eight months are required to complete all the licensing permissions if an industrial consumer wants to install a solar system which is a very long period.
He further stated that after shifting to solar some industrial consumers decided to enhance their solar energy capacity but for that they have to go through again the same process and they were informed that they do not have the permission of extension despite the fact that they were not selling it, rather utilising it for their own production. In this regard, Pesco authorities raided some industrial units which had made extensions and without any prior notice they disconnected their electricity supply due to which they suffered losses in millions.
Zahid Ullah Shinwari, former president SCCI stated that he remained president of SCCI twice. The business community handles every department with difficulty but to handle Pesco is quite difficult. He requested to make reforms in the existing laws and regulations of the power sector as these are unilateral and has no protection at all for the consumers especially for industrial consumers. He urged the parliamentarians to review the existing laws and regulations and make necessary amendments with reform point of view. He suggested to form a committee of all the stakeholders to review the existing laws as the existing laws do not address the small consumers and for the small consumers it is very difficult to meet the requirements of law and regulations and these are designed for large scale policy issues and actually they do not address the day to day matters/ businesses like net metering etc.
He was of the view that aspect of net metering is being dealt under the existing law which is causing problems. He observed that independence of industrial consumers in energy due to solar system is not being liked by Pesco. He stated that when they applied for extension of solar system the electric inspector inspected the site and cleared it but their application is being unnecessarily lingering on in the concerned department for many months and in the meantime they disconnected the electricity on the pretext that the extension is illegal and that too without any prior notice which caused huge losses to industrial units. He stated that due to shutting down of their operations their repute in the market suffered a lot, which is irreparable. He requested that if there is any violation by any consumers he should be fined accordingly but disconnecting his electricity is totally unfair.
Zahid Ali representing textile industry stated that textile industry is almost shut down in the province due to high tariff and load shedding. He said some of the industrial units installed solar systems to cater their needs but Pesco due to the reasons best known to them is causing undue hurdles in their operations.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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