Centralized Electrical Power Network, Blackouts and Electricity for All
Be it the city of lights, Karachi, though it doesn’t live up to its name not anymore, or valley of snow-covered mountains Hunza, the demand for unified flow of electrons is raising at unprecedent rate. With villages turning into towns, towns into cities and cities into metropolitans the demand for electricity is on the rise and so does the shortfall.
Energy Crisis is nothing new to us, millennials, we opened eye hearing news anchors screaming to at the top of their lung on how public is facing long hours of load shedding and how electricity has become a rare commodity in rural areas—areas where electricity is generated at first place and then get evacuated to big cities, where people drive to gym just to walk on treadmills. If we investigate the said issue at granular level, you will get to know that the primary fault not only exist on generation side (it has its fair share but for now it is not the subject of this article) but also in ways we have adopted to transmit and distribute electricity.
The electricity transmission and distribution network in a nation of more than 210 million people is a complex web and very much interdependent with little room for backup—a small fault in one major grid or power plant has a potential to initiate so called cascading effect which could easily choke the power system at whole country level. We don’t have to look far for an example of major disruption. On 22nd January of this year whole country plunged into darkness for several hours due to a ‘technical fault’ at Guddu power plant located in Sindh. One could easily predict the outcomes in case of national emergency like war or natural disaster. One single irreversible fault could bring back the age of kerosene lamps and candles. Unfortunately, high probability of disruptions within each subsystem of centralized electrical power system is not the only serious threat to our energy security.
Centralized electrical networks also add financial burden to the already crippling economy with ever- growing circular debt. Highly inefficient transmission and distributions system are contributing around 60 percent to the circular debt—which is estimated to rise to the tune of around RS 4 trillion by end of 2025. Even if we set aside all these negative impacts, the centralized electrical network has generally failure to delivery electricity to every household in Pakistan—due to the basic principle on which it has been built.
Our current national grid connectivity is based on energy demand—catering only the highly populated regions with lesser emphasis on rural areas. From the grid network map of Pakistan published by World Bank Group (WBG) in 1993, though old but still valid today, it is clearly evident that the vast distribution and transmission network primarily focus on areas where population density is very large like Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar and many other big cities.
Source: WBG Mapping unit 1993
The availability of grid in the remote regions like rural areas of Baluchistan is quite limited mainly due the fact that the provision of electricity in those areas is not economically feasible considering low demand, long distance transmission and associated losses. Due to said factors, around 30 percent of the population (IFC, Pakistan Off-grid lighting Consumer Perceptions, 2015) are still not connected to the Grid and almost 55 million people in this country are living without proper access to electricity.
Without electricity, these off grid communities are compelled to use fossil fuels to fulfill their energy need. According to Asian Development Bank, around 2.3 billion dollars are annually spent on kerosene, candle and battery powered lights in Pakistan. In some poor households, these fuels may account up to around 25 percent of total household income. Despite low income, the potential to adopt latest technologies of power generation exist—considering their cost effectiveness and better health and environment impact. Unfortunately, government has done little to none to bring light in lives of those who are living far from Grid.
To tackle the aging, inefficacy and vulnerability toward disruptions and blackouts, the developed countries have turned towards Distributed Energy Network. A distributed generation (DG) consists of small-medium plants (solar, wind and hydro) constructed in feasible places and the energy they produce are usually consumed locally or by other close users thus reducing their dependency on one major grid. Considering the advantages of DG over a century old centralized energy network, Pakistan should also start thinking to overhaul its energy infrastructure.
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Zahid Nawaz is a Technical Field Advisor at Wind Energy Division of Orient Energy System. As a consultant he has a broader working experience in development sector with organizations like World Bank Group, PPAF and AKRSP. His area of expertise lies in Renewable Energy and Policy. He is an active writer for Chitral Times on subjects like energy, economy and social issues of Chitral. You can contact with via his email ID [email protected]