Thursday, February 13, 2014 - IslamabadMinistry of Water and Power (MoWP) has sent a summary to Federalcabinetseeking the green signal for import of 1000 MW of electricity from Iran, a senior official at Ministry of Water and Power told Pakistan Observer.
According to officials of the Ministry, the government has initiated theprocessto import 1000 MW of electricity from Tehran. Iranian electricity will be cheaper as the electricity is generated on gas in Iran.
Keeping in view the increasing power crisis in the country, we have adopted a policy to import electricity from neighboring countries under which the ministry has sent the summary to federalcabinetseeking permission for importing electricity and green signal for initiating talks with Iranian authorities for agreement on importing 1000 MW.
Once the federalcabinetgives the green signal to the initiative of importing electricity of 1000 MW from Iran, then the concerned authorities of both the countries would start dialogue between them on price of electricity to be imported, financing of thetransmissionlines to be laid down from Tehran to Pakistan and other terms and conditions. Once the talks are over, then the agreement of importing electricity will take the shape.
To aquestionthe official said that there stands no impact of US sanctions on importing electricity from Iran as Pakistan is already importing 60 MW of electricity.
The 60 MW of electricity is currently being distributed bordering areas of Balochistan where in Wapdastransmissioninfrastructure is not available. To a question, the official said that the process to import 100 MW of electricity from Iran is also underway for Balochistans consumption particularly to meet to electricity needs of Gawadar.