How to Have Cheaper Electricity - load shedding - Power Crisis

How to Have Cheaper Electricity

(Power Crisis)

Modern life will surely be impossible without electric energy. We need it almost every where in our homes, in the shops, in the factories, on the farms, on the roads and in all public places. For some years now we have been trying to solve our electricity problem. The long hours of load shedding for industry and agriculture contributed to decline in national production and caused untold hardships to the people at large. Let us study the main causes of the crisis that is not over yet.4essay.blogspot.com

The water level in the dams like the Tarbela, Mangla, and Warsak is at times very low. Because of it the generation of hydroelectric power suffers a great deal. Then we have not constructed until now as many dams as we need, for example, the Kalahagh Dam, the Bhasha Dam in the northern areas on the Indus and certain other such possible dams could have eased the present difficult situation of power generation in the country. We do not have enough facilities for the generation of thermal power. The setting up of thermal power stations is highly expensive for a developing country like ours. Our efforts to set up such power stations with the IPPs (Independent Power Producers) skyrocketed electricity rates and brought the Wapda to the brink of bankruptcy.

We do not have enough nuclear power stations because of our dependence on hydroelectric power and lack of equipment and materials. The nuclear power station at Karachi the KANUPP (the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant) has, however, worked well and gives us hopes of having such, stations around the country. The Chashma Power Plant, planned in 1993 to be set up in the Frontier province, should have improved the power situation a great deal.

New industries continue to be set up and agriculture continues to be mechanized. Factories in the industrial centres and tube-wells and power-operated farm machinery need electricity most of the time. Its shortage and repeated load shedding affect production badly.4essay.blogspot.com

Rich families, business establishments and offices use air conditioners in the summer and electric heaters in the winter. This is a serious stain on our energy resources. It will be in national interest to reduce the use of these electric appliances.

We should increase power production in all possible ways. There is the need to store in the dams the water of our rivers, rain water and water from melted ice flowing along natural channels as much as possible. There can be more dams for this purpose. Then hydro electricity could be produced perhaps more than we need and could be exported as well. We should set up thermal power stations whenever needed, but on our own and generate electricity at reasonable expense.