Historical Nexus of the Development of Power Sector in Parallel to Population and Household Growth in Pakistan from 1947 to 2018

Abstract

The energy and power crisis has been evident in the last decades in Pakistan due to many reasons. In this current research, we have tried to find out the historic nexus among the population, housing and power sector development of Pakistan. To understand where in the history of Pakistan things went wrong. Why has this power crisis arisen in the last few decades? This research highlights the nexus among these three variables and the severity caused by any of them. The broader research covers the situation in the whole of Pakistan with special emphasis on the province of Punjab. The different growth factors of population and housing are outlined. It is believed that Pakistan needs 0.7M new houses every year to meet the demand. The domestic sector consumes 24.5% of the total available energy in Pakistan and 47% of the total electricity produced. According to one estimate, the power demand of Pakistan would go up to 101 GW. We have also identified the reasons for power crises of Pakistan as technical, non-technical and general issues. Pakistan started with a generation capacity of 0.06GW for 31M people, which rose to 22.5GW in 2018 for 209 M, having 32.2M houses. It is estimated that by 2050, the domestic sector will have 50.8M households with an average occupancy of 6.1. The Punjab had 21.8M population which has now grown to 110M (17.3M houses) in 2018 and is predicted to be 177M (28.6M houses) by 2050.The power generation capacity of Pakistan is around 22.5GW, and the current demand is 17GW, but it is not producing enough power to meet the current demand, and there is a shortage of 5GW. Considering all future projects, Pakistan would be able to produce 43.3GW by the year 2030, and its demand would be 54.4GW. The domestic sector is the largest consumer of power, having 84% of consumers in the entire country. Punjab consumes 62% of the total electricity produced in the country, and out of this, 85.6% is consumed by the domestic sector of Punjab. In total domestic sector of Punjab consumes 53% of the power consumed in Pakistan.