Gilgit-Baltistan: The Energy Conundrum

The advance­ment in the field of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy has set new hori­zons, from a hum­ble begin­ning to a sen­tient being that evolved through ages has trans­formed men from liv­ing in a cave to explor­ing Mars and vying ahead. Inno­va­tion in com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems has made men mobile, and the world a glob­al vil­lage. On the oth­er hand, in the field of pow­er sys­tems, the advance­ments have made the peo­ple ener­gized. More­over, Edison’s very first com­mer­cial gen­er­a­tion of AC pow­er is now con­tribut­ing gigan­ti­cal­ly across the globe. It is unfor­tu­nate that great many places are still devoid of essen­tial ener­gy nec­es­sary to sus­tain peo­ple in today’s world.

With the increas­ing gap between demand and sup­ply of ener­gy fac­ing Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), it was pre­dictable that the peo­ple will be left at the mer­cy of a hand­ful of ram­shackle gen­er­at­ing units. In a bid to over­come the over­whelm­ing demand for elec­tric­i­ty, Sat­para Dam Project was chalked out. Sat­para Dam Con­sul­tants, a con­sul­tan­cy firm for the Sat­para Dam Project com­menced the project in 2003 under the sub­or­di­na­tion of Pak­istan Engi­neer­ing Ser­vices (PES). More­over big names such as DESCON in civ­il works and Chi­na Machine-Build­ing Inter­na­tion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CMIC) in elec­tri­cal and mechan­i­cal works were hired as con­trac­tors. The project was aimed at cater­ing the Pow­er needs of the Skar­du city by pro­vid­ing 17MW of elec­tric­i­ty.

Sat­para Dam Project is the only mega project the area has expe­ri­enced to date. After the project’s com­ple­tion ear­li­er in 2014, it is still unable to bridge the city’s ener­gy gap as two out of four gen­er­a­tors are still not oper­a­tional due to admin­is­tra­tive incom­pe­ten­cy. The two oper­a­tional units have met their fate at the hands of inept oper­a­tors after they were change to man­u­al oper­at­ing from an auto­mat­ic one.
The elec­tric pow­er sys­tem is a com­plex, com­pos­ite and inter­min­gled sys­tem. There­fore, the need of coher­ence and har­mo­ny among its com­po­nents is of prime impor­tance. The estab­lished infra­struc­ture and new­ly built sys­tem in the city of Skar­du still remains inco­her­ent. The gen­er­at­ing units nor­mal­ly lie at far-off places and are brought in the vicin­i­ty of pop­u­la­tion via trans­mis­sion lines and dis­trib­uted at a Grid Sta­tion. All gen­er­a­tion meets here and is then dis­pensed to the util­i­ty with cal­cu­la­tion and con­trol. The ravines of GB not only attract tourists due to their rav­ish­ing beau­ty but are chan­neled to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty too. The small on stream, run of the riv­er type pow­er plants employed in the ravines remain mis­han­dled and go unhar­nessed — one of the rea­sons for remain­ing soar­ing pow­er out­ages in the city. GB has a reper­to­ry of renew­able ener­gy sources — Hydal poten­tial being on the top — but the inabil­i­ty to fill the widen­ing ener­gy gap is beyond appre­hen­sion.

With the advent of win­ters the ener­gy needs of Skar­du esca­late. The sub­ze­ro ambiance calls for mea­sures to counter its effect and peo­ple take stock of pos­si­ble mea­sures; there is no oth­er option left but to opt for cost­ly wood for cook­ing and heat­ing pur­pos­es. As tem­per­a­tures aggra­vate, so does the demand for elec­tric­i­ty and peo­ple resort to elec­tric heaters to keep them warm, which wors­ens the demand-sup­ply gap. In win­ters the inflow of water also decreas­es, direct­ly affect­ing the gen­er­a­tion capac­i­ty. The dearth of gen­er­at­ing units cou­pled with the increased demand dilap­i­date the socio-eco­nom­ic land­scape of the region. The fre­quent light out­ages have plagued the dai­ly life. GB has the capac­i­ty to not only over­come its own needs, but also of the rest of the coun­try. The government’s lack of inter­est in cap­i­tal­iz­ing these resources has stalled the poten­tial growth of the region in par­tic­u­lar and of the coun­try in a broad­er per­spec­tive. It is high time that we exploit this resource­ful region in terms of renew­able ener­gy sources, embark­ing the coun­try on the avenues of progress and pros­per­i­ty. This demands sin­cer­i­ty on the part of peo­ple at the helm of affairs.