The government has invited prospective independent power producers to establish coal-based power plants of cumulative capacity of 9,780MW by the year 2022, when the total power generation, as planned, would be 34,500MW.
This means coal’s share in power generation works out at 28pc, which is very encouraging. But,, all of these projects — excluding the 1,200MW Thar coal-based Engro project — are proposed to run on imported coal. This will be disastrous to the local coal mining industry, which is still in a nascent stage of development.
Pursuant to the policy of increasing the share of coal in the overall energy mix, the National Power Generation Plan of 2005 had envisaged additional power generation of 1,260MW by 2010, and a further 7,570MW by 2015, from indigenous coal.
Likewise, the Habibullah and Fateh Groups were interested in constructing power stations of 150MW and 200MW capacity, respectively, using Lakhra coal. But these plans did not materialise.
The first private indigenous coal-based power station is owned and operated in Sindh by the SSJD Group. The 15MW plant was commissioned in 2010 and supplies electricity to the K-Electric network. Investors acquired 100 sq-km of the Badin coalfield on a 30-year mining lease for the project. Its capacity would be enhanced to 600MW in a phase-wise manner.
In spite of a number of plans to establish small mine-mouth power plants at various locations, both by the government and the private sector, not a single scheme has seen the light of day.
