Thar coal plant starts electricity generation
karachi — The Thar coal power project has started electricity production on Tuesday with 330-megawatt of power being added to the national grid.
With a fast growing population and an expanding economy, Pakistan has had trouble meeting surging demand for electricity, while the cost of importing oil and natural gas has soared.
Pakistan’s Engro Powergen Thar Private Ltd (EPTL) started test run operations at a large power station that will use domestic lignite coal to generate power, the company’s chief executive said.
The power station’s two units will burn domestic lignite, a cheap but polluting energy source, from the Tharparkar district, around 390 kilometres east of Karachi.
“We are running the plant on 100 per cent local coal, thus generating cheap and abundant power in this country,” Ahsan Zafar Syed, EPTL’s chief executive, said.
The station’s first unit was connected to the power grid on Monday and the second unit will be connected in April, he said.
Commercial operations are expected to start from June.
EPTL is part of the $60 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that involves building new infrastructure to help turn Pakistan into a major overland route linking China to the wider region.
A spokesperson of the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) hailed the development as “historic” and said the production of electricity will be done in
stages.d“Thar has (one) of the world’s largest reserves of coal with 175 billion tonnes,” he said.
“We reached the target of producing electricity three months before the deadline.”
Pakistan discovered the Thar coalfields in 1991. These contain the world’s seventh largest coal reserves
of 175 billion tonnes. Expressing his joy over the the project , Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said: “What a great day for Pakistan. I am humbled to have been able to play a small part as Sindh is firmly putting Pakistan on the road to energy security.”