ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Gross Value Added (GVA) of electricity generation for 2020-21 amounted to Rs577.759 billion, showing a decrease of 14.5 percent over the previous year 2019-20 of Rs675.752 billion, says the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

The GVA is the contribution of any sector towards the national income which is measured in the form of GDP. The GVA for the year 2006-07 was estimated to be Rs85.896 billion which increased to Rs577.759 billion in 2020-21 showing 573 percent increase in 15 years.

A significant increase in GVA is observed during the year 2010-11 which is more than 110 percent growth. For these 15 years, the Annual Average Growth Rate (AAGR) is 19 percent on annual basis, says PBS in its report, “Trends in Electricity Generation 2006-07 to 2020-21”.

The report noted that the overall installed capacity for the year 2020-21 stood at 40,606MW, showing 0.98 percent growth over 40,211MW in 2019-20. Major increase in the installed capacity can be observed during 2016 and 2017. From 2007 to 2021, the installed capacity increased with an average annual growth of about five percent. However, during the last six years, a visible increase of nine percent can be observed in the average annual growth.

The private sector shows 6.7 percent AAGR from 2006-07 to 2020-21, whereas, public sector portrays only 4.9 percent during the same period of time. Further, the public sector share was 69 percent in 2007 which has been reduced to 63 percent in 2021. The share of private sector in total electricity capacity increased from 31 percent to 37 percent during the same period of time.

In provinces, Punjab has maximum installed capacity i.e. 17,257MW, whereas, Sindh has second-highest installed capacity of 11,345MW followed by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) (5,951MW), Balochistan (3,722MW), and AJK (2,331MW). At the time of independence, Pakistan’s congenital power generation capacity was 69MW only.

The share of installed capacity of Hydel contracted from 33 percent to 24 percent from 2007 to 2021 but in absolute terms its installed capacity increased from 6474MW in 2007 to 9912MW in 2021. All other sources also expanded their share from 2007 to 2021 i.e. nuclear 2.16 percent to 4.36 percent, thermal 64.9 percent to 65.5 percent, bagasse zero to 1.3 percent, solar zero to 1.37 percent and wind zero to 3.06 percent. However, thermal is still leading source of energy in Pakistan.

India is the largest country in the region that has electricity installed capacity of 459,200MW during the year 2020-21 and Bangladesh has 21,395MW during 2020-21. Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bhutan and Nepal stood at 4,263MW, 641MW, 2342MW and 1417MW in 2020 respectively. Hence, Pakistan has the second largest installed electricity capacity of 40,606MW among the South Asian region.

The overall electricity generation increase is 44 percent from 99895 GWh in 2006-07 to 143,704 GWh in 2020-21. The AAGR is about 2.7 percent during the period 2006-07-2020-21. The maximum increase of 10 percent is observed in 2017-18 over 2016-17. The electricity generation for the year 2020-21 has shown an increase of 6.9 percent over the previous year. Punjab produced maximum generation of 59,609 GWh followed by Sindh with 38,241 GWh.

During the years from 2006-07 to 2020-21, the electricity generated through nuclear plants increased from 2284 to 11087 GWh showing 385 percent growth, hydel shown 22 percent, Thermal 36 percent and all other alternate sources which were not existed in 2006-07 generated 4522 GWh electricity in 2020-21.

During the year 2020-21, Punjab produced maximum electricity of 59,609 GWh, followed by Sindh which generated 38,241 GWh. KP was third with 19,803 GWh, whereas Balochistan and AJK generated electricity of 14466 GWh and 11,595 GWh, respectively.

Further, the average capacity utilisation rate of nuclear energy is very high with 72 percent, followed by hydel (45 percent), thermal (38 percent), wind (27 percent), solar (19 percent), and bagasse (15 percent).

The share of renewable energy in the overall installed capacity is 30.1 percent. Out of 30.1 percent hydel is 24.4 percent, while wind comprises 3.1 percent, solar 1.4 percent, and bagasse 1.3 percent.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022