April 10, 2019: 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 said on Wednesday.
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, a 25-year demand/supply projection of power has 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.
Many renewable energy projects that were stuck due to earlier decisions of the government had been cleared already, the sources said.
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, and there was a marked improvement with a combined effect of about Rs 22 billion.
Moreover, an automated Metering Infrastructure was under implementation to use technology like detect theft and leakages and as well as manage billing and collections, they said.
The 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.
(APP)
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