Islamabad:
Federal Power Minister Sardar Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari has urged the World Bank to provide funds and investments for installation of smart meters in transformers at distribution level to bring transparency and address unfair load management due to losses at micro level .
He was speaking to World Bank visiting vice president for the South Asia region Martin Raiser, who met him here along with a delegation on Friday, a press release said. Division of Federal Minister of Petroleum Dr. Musaddiq Malik also participated in the meeting.
Explaining the importance of smart meters at distribution level transformers, the federal minister said that right now smart meters are being installed at household and grid level and it has helped in many ways. However, without installing smart meters at transformer level, the desired efficiency and load management only for a particular area cannot be guaranteed, since at this time the entire feeder has to face the same load management, without power without consolation to efficient consumers. He said these smart meters can also be useful in managing peak load demand.
Leghari also invited the World Bank to invest in public private partnership mode in smart metering in Lesco and MEPCO as a service of service. He reported that these distribution companies are next on the privatization list.
He informed the delegation that due to the Bijli Sahulat package, there is a 7% increase in energy consumption in the industrial sector in December 2024 compared to last year during the same period indicating an appetite and appreciation for part of consumers for any future auction of surplus electricity in the country.
The Minister also presents a total stock of initiatives undertaken by the power division in the sector leading to efficiency, financial discipline, autonomy in decision making and reduction of power tariff for domestic and industrial consumers.
He informed that the electricity sector will soon enter the Muti-Buyer and Multi-Seller market and that the CPPA will no longer remain a single buyer as it has already stopped to reach a further agreement in this regard. The principle of competitiveness and affordability will govern the generation and distribution of the energy sector, he added. In this regard, wheel charges are almost being finalized.
He also appraised the delegation on the recent initiatives to provide single point electricity connections with distribution collection and billing rights to industrial estates and special economic zones eliminating monopoly and intervention of employees of distribution companies at all stages.
