Cabinet body takes ‘lenient view’ of KESC failures

The KESC termed the meeting of its owners with the special cabinet committee on the energy crisis “positive”, as the government committee apparently took a lenient view of the utility’s failure to maintain system functionality during the recent monsoon rains, and extended the time frame given to the company to revamp its infrastructure.

Reassurances were also given to the company’s representatives on financial issues.

Responding to questions in this regard during a press briefing, Chief Operating Officer (Distribution) of the KESC Jan Abbas Zaidi confirmed that the financial matters of the KESC figured high on the agenda of the cabinet committee’s meeting with the owners and other top brass of the utility in Islamabad.

The government has now agreed to extend the time frame for the first phase of crash revamping plans to September 15.

Owners of the privatised utility were invited to Islamabad on August 5 to deliberate and resolve all issues, including those of circular debt and investment in improving the generation, transmission and distribution systems of the utility. The government had called the meeting because it felt that an improvement in the power sector was essential for the viability of growth in industries, exports and employment.

When his attention was drawn to the concern expressed by the cabinet committee earlier on the utility’s financial solvency and circular debt issue, Jan Abbas Zaidi said that issues of subsidies, receivables and payables were deliberated upon in Islamabad.

“All the issues, including those relating to the business forecast, crisis management, receivables, payables, and the quantum and mode of government support to the utility owing to loss caused by disconnection of ‘kunda’ and other illegal connections also came up for discussion,” said Mr Zaidi, though he did not divulge the details of the decisions.

Sources said that the government had sought some written assurances from the utility’s private management, especially with regard to investment for enhancing its generation, transmission and distribution network. The issue of circular debt and working capital and their modalities will be further examined by the finance and water and power ministries with a direction being issued to the utility to inject more money and clear outstanding debts it owes to the suppliers of energy and fuel, including the IPPs, they said.

The government has made it clear to the owners that it “cannot keep on bailing out the utility on the issue of debts”. Sources however said the ‘patrons’ of the privatised utility in the government had succeeded in deflecting the fury of the people in view of the dismal performance of the KESC. They allege that the whole exercise was “a cover-up to deal with the public’s outrage”.

While extending the time frame for revamping of three model towns — Gulberg, Gulshan and Shah Faisal — until September 15, the government has also included Lyari Town as the fourth model town to be upgraded by that date.

But there were apprehensions that this deadline would not be met because of the August 20 referendum of the Unions and Ramazan.

Further, six more towns will be revamped by December 31, said Mr Zaidi. He said that the utility planned to complete the revamping of 10 towns of the city by December this year. Another four towns will be revamped by March and the remaining four would be upgraded by June next.

Mr Zaidi said that two new feeders had been set up in Gulshan Town while load balancing had also been done there. Another 16 new feeders were in the pipeline for the improvement of the supply system.

Announcing the operational update, Mr Zaidi said that at 2pm on Thursday, the total demand of the City stood at 2,264MW and the utility was supplying the same. All the units, including IPPs, were running at full capacity. He said that 30 cable faults were repaired during the previous 24 hours, of which 14 were those of main cables and the rest belonged to link cables.

Jahangir Azar, Director Industrial Relations, updated the media on the upcoming Aug 20 referendum in the KESC on this occasion and expressed his concerns over the NIRC’s decision to announce a date without finalising the voters list and including the security guards as workmen.

Let there be electricity…

Solar energy expert and director of US-based NGO Skyheat Associates, Dr Richard Komp, pioneered a Photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing and assembling method, deemed apt for any sort of cottage industry. There are efforts to introduce this system in the city, with 23-year-old Faizan Ahmed, a student of physics and mechanical engineering, trying to replicate the model in Pakistan.

“In a city where power outages are much recurrent, the most common coping mechanism for citizens is to purchase portable electricity generators which have relatively high running costs,” said Ahmed, adding that renewable and clean energy sources such as PV modules and panels can help to overcome shortage of power supply.

Preferably consuming five hours of sunshine a day with a 120 watt PV system (two 60 watt panels), about 0.6 kilowatt-hours of electricity could be generated everyday through the Komp system. This energy is deemed to be enough to run four energy saver light-bulbs for 10 hours, a ceiling fan for about eight and a laptop for 24 hours. The PV system requires little maintenance and is pollution-free whereas its modules are rugged, easy to install and would last for decades.

When asked if a PV system could provide power to an entire house, Ahmed replied that it depends on individual household energy consumption patterns. “Generally it is not considered feasible to power a house with running ACs, refrigerators, televisions and other high energy appliances only with solar energy. The system would need to be over-sized to account for peak usage levels, the panels would take up a vast area and the initial costs would be extremely high,” he added.

Ahmed narrated that he got in touch with Komp by chance, as Ambreen Rahman, a Pakistani student based in the United States (US), had contacted the expert to express her keenness for carrying out such workshops in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan. Her logic, he said, was to benefit from PV assembly workshops that Komp had conducted in countries such as Nicaragua, India and Haiti, and use the knowledge for the benefit of the impoverished and unemployed in Muzaffarabad.

He said that due to a lack of appropriate information regarding the outcome of the project and a lack of sustainable funding, Ambreen could not carry out her efforts in Muzzafarabad, but she did introduce Komp to him, as he (Ahmed) had undertaken similar efforts in Thar, Sindh.

According to Ahmed, he had worked on the operations and maintenance of PV systems (installed by the government) in remote villages of Thar, as part of an internship with the Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB) in the summer of 2007. Ahmed then wrote a detailed proposal about a workshop titled ‘Small-Scale Solar Module Manufacturing in Karachi’, and sent it to Komp, who subsequently accepted to carry out a PV session in Karachi, in July 2009.

The aim of the workshop was to educate stakeholders and contribute to the sustainable energy industry at grassroots level, a task that it was able to achieve with the help of a group consisting twenty unemployed people, who were given PV modules using tested methods developed by Komp. The workshop was organised by a local NGO, Galaxy of Youth (GOY), while Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Pakistan (IEEEP) and AEDB also contributed to the venture.

However, many believe that a major drawback of a PV system is its relatively high initial investment, estimated to be about Rs20,000 per 60W panel. Detractors claim that if the system has a 25-year life-span, with battery replacements every two to three years, the cost of electricity generated is roughly twice that is supplied by the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC).