DUSHANBE, August 6, 2008, Asia-Plus – Pakistan will import 1,000 megawatts of electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan through Afghanistan, Pakistan’s minister for water and power said on August 3.
Energy ministers from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan started a two-day meeting in Islamabad to sign a formal agreement about the project on Monday.
Raja Pervez Ashraf told the inaugural session of the 3rd international conference on Central Asia/South Asia Regional Electricity Market (CASAREM), the project will be completed by 2013.
According to sources, the Central Asia-South Asia (CASA) project is being facilitated and sponsored by a consortium of international lenders, comprising the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Islamic Development Bank, for development of electricity sources in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan for export to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The inter-governmental agreement will cover a host of contracts relating to commercial, legal, financial, power purchase and transmission arrangements, media reports said.
The project will ensure a supply of 5.5 billion units of electricity per year to Pakistan from different hydropower stations in the two Central Asian states and the electricity will be delivered to Peshawar through a 650-700km extra-high voltage transmission line.
Reports said that two routes have been identified for the project.
One route will run through Afghanistan”s Kunduz province, Salang Pass and Jalalabad before reaching Peshawar and will cost 4.4 cents per unit.
The transmission line through this route will stretch 170km in Tajikistan, 430km in Afghanistan and 50km in Pakistan. The World Bank supports this route.
Pakistan supports a route via Wakhan and Chitral whose length is estimated at 700km and its per unit cost in Peshawar is estimated at 4.9 to 5 cents.
The line will run 360km in Tajikistan, 30km in Afghanistan (Wakhan) and 310km in Pakistan.
The World Bank has been trying to persuade Pakistan to import some 4,000MW of cheap electricity from Central Asian states, besides working on domestic sources to overcome electricity shortage.
The Bank estimates that Pakistan”s peak demand now exceeds some 14,000MW and the present installed capacity of 19,500MW has become inadequate on account of wide variations in water availability.
The demand is expected to exceed 20,000MW by 2010.
The World Bank says Pakistan should immediately start importing 1,000MW from Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic and then increase imports to 4,000MW in the second phase.
