National Electricity Policy being prepared for sustainable power market

National Electricity Policy being prepared for sustainable power market

ISLAMABAD, Apr 10 (APP):The government is preparing a National Electricity Policy for the development, reform, improvement and sustainability of electricity market and sector.
“The policy provides the vision of the government for the electricity sector to set the goals, key guiding principles and to provide policy level direction,” official sources told APP here Wednesday.
They said under the new electricity policy, a 5-year National Electricity Plans would be prepared to provide guidelines for specific initiatives which might be required in a particular sub-sector / segment of this sector.
Meanwhile, they said a 25-year demand/supply projection of power had been prepared and submitted to the regulator to set the long-term direction for the sector.
A new renewable energy policy has also been drafted, with a focus to increase the percentage of renewable energy in the overall mix, to 25%-30%, and opening up the market for all sizes as well as bilateral arrangements, they said.
The sources said many renewable energy projects that were stuck due to earlier decisions of the government had been cleared already.
The government had already launched extensive anti-theft and recovery campaign from October 2018.
The campaign had started to show results. From November 2018 to January 2019 (compared to the corresponding period of previous year), AT&C losses were on a declining trend, in January 2019 alone, there was a marked improvement with a combined effect of about Rs 22 billion.
They said automated Metering Infrastructure was under implementation to use technology like detect theft and leakages and as well as manage billing and collections.
Large investments in power transmission and distribution to reduce technical losses as well as improve service delivery were being done, they said.
The sources said currently outstanding circular debt had partly been refinanced through longer term, and much cheaper Sukuk. Making energy conservation an important pillar of government’s energy policy and a NEECA was being revitalized, while the Task Force was preparing Policy recommendations in consultation with bodies like UNIDO and EU.

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