CAPE TOWN (miningweekly.com) – Pakistan is planning to increase its coal-fired power station fleet to alleviate electricity constraints, and is eyeing South African coal as a potential supplier to meet its growing coal requirements.
Pakistan National Electric Power Regulatory Authority deputy director Salman Rehman, told delegates at IHS Markit’s 2017 South African Coal Export Conference, in Cape Town, last week, that the country’s current level of electricity generation from coal sources was “negligible” at around 1% of the country’s total energy mix.
However, owing to the cost-effectiveness and stability of supply associated with coal-fired power generation, this figure would increase significantly in coming years.
There are plans to add about 8 000 MW of coal-fired power capacity to Pakistan’s power grid over the next five to seven years. Rehman remarked that these proposed coal-fired power stations would require an estimated 20-million to 27-million tons a year of coal once they come into operation.
“Pakistan currently imports 90% of the coal it uses from South Africa. This will certainly put the country in a good place to increase coal supplies to Pakistan, as our coal plants become operational,” he concluded.