Govt working to introduce virtual grid system, says power minister

ISLAMABAD: Power Minister Awais Leghari on Wednesday said the government was working to introduce a virtual grid system in the country, under which consumers would be able to generate and store electricity.

Talking to the media after a National Assembly panel meeting, the minister said work on regulations for virtual grids had already started and that the regulations would be finalised by the last quarter of the current fiscal year.

The minister said power distribution companies (Discos) had also been directed to install batteries on their grids as part of efforts to improve the power system and promote energy storage.

“A battery revolution is coming to Pakistan as the government seeks to promote battery use and introduce a virtual grid system,” he said.

“The government’s objective is to increase the use of batteries in the country’s power sector.”

Earlier, the minister faced a tough time at the NA Standing Committee on Power meeting as committee chairman Muhammad Idrees questioned him about prolonged electricity load-shedding in the country.

During the meeting, Leghari acknowledged that load-shedding was being carried out on around 3,500 of the country’s 14,500 feeders due to electricity theft and line losses.

“Within a year, the government will shift load-shedding from feeders to transformers so that an entire feeder will not have to be shut down,” he said, adding that the government was also introducing an on-off control system for around 190,000 transformers.

With the new system, he said, it would not be necessary to shut down an entire feeder, while consumers who regularly paid their electricity bills would not be affected.

He said there was currently no additional load-shedding in the country. “The outages are mainly occurring due to faults caused by overloading of the power system.”

Leghari said heavy investment was required to upgrade the power system and that approval from the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) would be sought for the upgrades.

Regarding the energy situation, the minister said the closure of the Strait of Hormuz had affected the Petroleum Division’s ability to receive LNG cargoes. He said the government was using locally produced gas for power generation.

Explaining the decision to carry out load-shedding at night, Leghari asked, “Who will bear an additional electricity bill of Rs6 to Rs6.50 per unit?”

He said a gas cargo that previously cost around $30 million was now costing more than $95 million, making it necessary to take measures to reduce fuel costs.

“We carried out load-shedding during peak hours to save fuel costs,” the minister said.

He clarified that the government had not signed any new agreement with any independent power producer (IPP), adding that incorrect reports had appeared in the media on the matter.

During the meeting, PML-N MNA Rana Muhammad Hayat said there was a lot of discussion but electricity prices had not come down.

“There is so much load-shedding that it has become difficult for us to go among the people,” he said.

Hayat also criticised the performance of the Discos, but ended up blaming the policymakers and the ministry for the state of affairs in the power sector.

“What can the Discos do, minister sahab? You switch off the electricity,” he said.

The PML-N lawmaker said the government’s policies gave the impression that it was working primarily to meet the requirements of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), rather than addressing people’s problems.

“Yes, I feel like we are working not for the country but only for the IMF,” he said. The minister, however, responded that Hayat was making an irresponsible statement at a responsible forum.