Energy crisis: Hydropower projects – causes and solutions

Many reports emanating from the American Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee indicating severe water shortage in times to come in Afghanistan and Pakistan points figures at Pakistan’s failure to use the Indus Basin water to its advantage in the past decades. Governments come and go without giving due importance to this alarming situation, the result of which are already appearing in the shape of dry rivers; Bayas, Sutlej and Ravi already in India’s control under Indus Basin Treaty appear as small nullahs with dirty water nowadays, River Chenab is already having Bursar Hydropower project, Jhelum constructing Yuri Dam with Yuri II, an off-shoot of Kishen Ganga Project due for completion soon.The argument given is that Pakistan looses 30 to 35 Million Acre Feet of water each season to the sea and this surplus water is not being made use of. The last year’s floods speak volumes about this alarming situation. The Indus Basin Waters Treaty allows only storage of 1.7 million acre feet of water on Chenab through the hydroelectric dam by India whereas the Indian dam shall store 2.2 million acre feet of water.

It is feared that on the grounds of water not being stored by Pakistan, India might convince the donor agencies to re-hash Indus Basin Waters Treaty in its favour. By now it must be evident to all that India calling Held Kashmir as ‘Atoot Ang’ not for the love of it but for its waters only.

This situation arose by India’s water hegemony has also been noticed by the US. Senator John Kerry in his recent report has written on the issue as to how to avoid water conflict in South Asia though it lays short of suggesting any solutions for the lower riparian, Pakistan. He advocates that Indus Basin Waters Treaty (IWT) between India and Pakistan could avoid this conflict if its decisions are strictly adhered to.

Most importantly it spells the mechanism to assist Pakistan in building dams and canals to make up for the loss of the three rivers. Only run of the river hydroelectric dams could be built by India and not reservoirs, no tunneling, no diversions etc.

Finally, it pays down mechanism for dispute resolving. India had violated all these conditions of IWT. It has made dams by diverting waters from the rivers entering its lower riparian by making link canals and underground tunnels as well. Taking the plea of avoiding sedimentation, it is tunneling water on the Baghliar Dam.Kishen Ganga Dam is the most controversial project for which the same is true. To top it all, it has started building Kama hydroelectric project on Kabul River in Afghanistan that shall curtail water in Kabul River entering Pakistan thus creating a reason of feud between Pakistan and Afghanistan. India has a history of lingering on water disputes between Pakistan and India despite many sessions of the IWT in the past, the latter not making any use of funds that could have been made available by the international donor agencies for making reservoirs on Pakistani rivers in the past.

Also Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) has been distributing funds lavishly to the anti-Pakistan lobbies in our country that has led to the present impasse.

Pakistan thus needs to wake up and very emphatically thwart the efforts of the anti-reservoir building lobbies and arrange consensus among all political parties to make dams on the Indus Rivers, especially in wake of last year’s floods from which lessons need to be learnt.

It has been three years of the present political dispensation with unfulfilled promises to put an end to load shedding. The only way out thought, was to be in the shape of rental power plants. Even that step ended in fiasco as none worked and there was talk of heavy kickbacks. Apart from the factors such as terrorism, inflation, corruption, unemployment etc., the main problem has been lack of will of the past political or dictatorial governments to provide energy like electricity, gas and clean drinking water to masses at affordable tariffs.

The blame should be equally shared by successive governments since the sixties. Ayub Khan at least built Tarbela Dam though even at that time, he preferred it over Kalabagh Dam as Tarbela Dam was located in NWFP It should, however, be appreciated that at least a dam was built that despite silting problems is still providing some units of energy and some water for agriculture.

Ghazi Barotha Dam though an excellent project but does not have a reservoir. No plans have been made on emergency footings in the last five decades and even if they existed, these were not implemented due to weakness of the successive leaders in the right decision making process. The political heads remained busy and still are busy, in consolidating their seats to spend as much time in power, rather than doing anything concrete for the masses.

We shall, therefore, restrict our present discourse to the importance of large water reservoirs as the only cheap option to provide electricity on affordable tariffs. It is in everybody’s knowledge that the economic stability and prosperity of any country depends on its energy production and consumption. As reiterated above, Pakistan has not used its hydel resources to its maximum capacity and relied more on thermal units, those too are getting old as time passes by.

In recent years, the import of oil has increased due to continuous rise in oil consumption and the inadequate production of oil in the country and the ever-rising rise in oil prices imported. Lack of refineries, moreover, has made Pakistan largely dependent on the import of petroleum products. This adverse situation has put a high pressure on the cost configuration in power generating sector. This situation has led to shortage in domestic and commercial electricity and gas supply.

We shall leave discourse of oil, natural gas, thermal, coal and other renewable energy sources and projects for subsequent submissions but shall concentrate on hydropower projects now. Let us look at the hydroelectric projects that need to be built immediately.

Present situation

Hydro power potential in Pakistan is 45,000 MW. The total current Hydel Power Demand in Pakistan is about 18,000MW. Whereas only 15 per cent (6,500 MW) of Hydel Power has been exploited. Tarbela Dam (3478MW), Ghazi Barotha Dam (1450MW), Mangla Dam (1000MW) and Chashma Dam (187MW) are the four major projects in this regard.The storage capacities of these are declining by 20 per cent due to sedimentation, especially in Tarbela and Mangla. Various other projects are under construction (presently on hold) with major Neelum-Jhelum Project having proposed capacity of 969MW. Also there are many sites in Punjab Canal Network that needs to be implemented.

Akhori Dam

Construction of Bhasha Dam if built shall take a decade or more which shall only replace the dwindling capacity of Tarbela and Mangla Dams and not add to the capacity; a fallacy being projected. One of the answers is in the construction of Akhori Dam. Building of Akhori Dam could be partial answer as this project shall store about 8.6 billion cubic meters (7 million acre feet) surplus Indus River water that is spilled after filling Tarbela reservoir.The feasibility studies already carried out confirm its technical and economic viability. This dam, if built has the capacity of storing monsoon water to be released for mitigating irrigation shortages during the dry season. Akhori Dam Project is quite trouble-free in its perception and includes a gated intake structure, a 37 kilometers long water conveyance channel, a reservoir, a hydropower station, a spillway, dams and ancillary works.

The reservoir is proposed to be developed by constructing dams across a valley near Akhori village. The valley is situated between Attock and Fatehjang towns, on the left bank of the Haro River, about 40 kilometers west of Islamabad and 35 kilometers south of Tarbela dam. The intake structure will be designed for supplying water from Tarbela to Akhori reservoir and it will be constructed on the southern periphery of Tarbela reservoir.

The intake will function as an additional spillway of Tarbela that will release the water into the conveyance channel for delivering to and storing in Akhori reservoir. The invert or sill of the intake structure will be at the same level as the crest of two existing spillways of Tarbela. Apart from storing water for agriculture, it has capacity to generate electricity as well as the design of hydropower station shall tie together the hydro energy of the stored water before it is released from Akhori reservoir into the Haro River.

Then the released water shall join the Indus River downstream of Ghazi Barotha hydropower station. Also, sedimentation problem is believed to be less as the raised intake sill can divert to Akhori reservoir sediment free water that is near the top surface of the full Tarbela reservoir.