KARACHI: Pakistan’s energy sector can save around $8.6 billion over the next decade by implementing improved power production strategies.

The Policy Research Institute for Equitable Development (PRIED) and a research institution, Renewables First, released earlier this week a jointly conducted independent study, which shows ineffective planning has led to the setting up of expensive and inefficient power plants.

These projects are burdening consumers with high electricity costs and contributing towards the ever-worsening circular debt crisis.

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The study explores various alternative scenarios by evaluating the government-prepared Indicative Generation Capacity Expan­­sion Plan (IGCEP) 2022-31.

Ammar Qaseem, a researcher working at Renewables First who’s also one of the authors of the study, told a multi-stakeholder dialogue in Islamabad that he and his team have used the same statistics, worked under the same assumptions and used the same modelling software, PLEXOS, that the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) has used.

“However, our findings and projections are different from those made in IGCEP 2022-31,” he said.

This difference, according to him, could be because “NTDC has chosen not to reveal its methodology completely, it has not made all the disclosures about the data it has used and has factored in arbitrary constraints on wind and solar technologies.”

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2023