ISLAMABAD, Sep 04 (APP): Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Azam Nazeer Tarar on Wednesday informed the National Assembly that a feasibility study was being carried out in phase 1 to install smart meters at every transformer to check power pilferage adding that as per an estimated $ 6 billion would be required to switch around 28 million domestic consumers on smart meters.
Responding to various supplementary questions during Question Hour, the minister said that out of 28 million domestic consumers, 17 million falls under the protected category who utilized upto 200 units per month. The World Bank will provide 70% of the funds for the smart meters project, while the government will arrange the remaining 30 per cent, he added.
He said no load shedding is being carried out in the country on account of generation shortfall. All power distribution companies (DISCOs) were carrying out load management in their areas based on the losses of feeders, he added. He said that feeders with losses of up to 20 per cent were exempt from outages.
To another question, he said the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) was actively pursuing the promotion and development of Alternative and Renewable Energy technologies for power generation in line with the government’s vision to diversify the energy mix.
He said a total of 58 ARE based projects having cumulative capacity of 3,837 megawatt (MW) were operational. These include 1,845 MW wind power projects.
