Month: January 2022

The government’s decision to impose 17 per cent sales tax on solar panels, inverters and related equipment will jeopardise the very essence of the National Renewable Energy Policy which aims to acquire a 30 per cent share of renewables in energy mix by 2030. Pakistan Solar Association chairman Rana Ghulam Abbas said the increase in prices of solar energy systems/equipment is taken as a threat to the progress of the renewable energy sector and all the stakeholders foresee a drastic negative impact on the future of renewable in the country.…

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Draft European Union plans that would allow nuclear and gas energy to remain part of the bloc’s path to a climate-friendly future came under immediate criticism over the weekend from both environmentalists and some governing political parties in EU member nations. In draft conclusions, the EU’s executive commission proposes a classification system for defining what counts as an investment in sustainable energy. Under certain conditions, it would allow gas and nuclear energy to be part of the mix. The plans would have a huge impact on nuclear-fired economies like France…

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Pakistan’s prime oil and gas exploration company, OGDCL has discovered huge oil and gas reserves in the Wali block near Lakki Marwat in KP. The find is being estimated as the biggest one in the last decade, top sources in the Energy Ministry told The News on Sunday. “The Wali block reserves are considered equal or more than the reserves found in the Nashpa field. The Nashpa reserves are equal to 95 MMBOE (million barrels of oil equivalent). Once the Wali block is developed with at least nine to ten…

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Germany has pulled the plug on three of its last six nuclear power stations as it moves towards completing its withdrawal from nuclear power as it turns its focus to renewables. The government decided to speed up the phasing out of nuclear power following Japan’s Fukushima reactor meltdown in 2011 when an earthquake and tsunami destroyed the coastal plant in the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. The reactors of Brokdorf, Grohnde and Gundremmingen C, run by utilities E.ON and RWE , shut down late on Friday after three and…

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Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection Senator Dr Sania Nishtar on Sunday inaugurated the first-ever ginger cultivation during the Ginger Harvest Workshop held in the Balkasar area of Chakwal, Punjab. This was the first ginger harvest piloted in Pakistan. The crop was grown in 11 months. Being an essential ingredient of Pakistani cuisine, ginger is high in demand but unfortunately, it is not grown here, and all the crop is imported to meet domestic needs. At the event, participants learnt from experts about the…

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Refinery Limited (PRL) has announced that it will upgrade its plant to convert furnace oil into advanced quality Euro-V petrol and diesel and expand production capacity to more than double the existing one at an estimated cost of $1.2 billion. “The board of directors of Pakistan Refinery Limited in its meeting held on December 27, 2021 has decided to undertake refinery expansion and upgrade project (REUP),” PRL Company Secretary Shehzad Aminullah said in a notification to Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Tuesday. “The project cost is currently estimated at around…

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Inefficiencies of distribution companies have been considered as one of the main power sector problems, although this is not the sole issue and performance improvement alone may not allow to get rid of the problems and difficulties of the sector. Losses may at best be halved and brought to the level of 8-10%. Technical improvements such as smart meters alone may not be a panacea but organisational changes would be required as well. We will discuss some of these issues and strategies in this space. One of the DISCO performance…

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