Mian Mobeen Shaukat, student mechanical engineering, Ghulam Ishaque Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology
Electricity is the heartbeat of the modern world and is a measure of the progress of a country. Nowadays with the power generated you can turn deserts into gardens. Take Saudi Arab as an example, a country known for its barren deserts. It has now become able to export wheat just because of the electricity, with the help of which it is pumping water far into the deserts and is using electric sprinklers for spraying water on to the crop. Just look around yourself, our life depends a lot upon electricity. The lights, A.C.'s, T.V.'s, fans, computers and lots of other appliances are working just due to the invisible power of electricity. In short, nowadays life has become luminous just due to electricity.
But the question is that "how this energy is generated?". According to the law of conservation of energy, we must give something to get something and from this law evolves the question, " What can we give to get Electricity? ".
There are many ways to generate electricity, such as
1. Conversion of mechanical energy to electrical energy or electricity
2. Conversion of light energy to electricity
3. Conversion of chemical energy to electricity, etc.
But the methods which are most to common to generate electricity are through the use of Nuclear, Hydel and Thermal energy by employing the method 1 written above.
The choice of the electricity generation technique depends upon the cost per unit involved in the process. Here is a comparison of the cost per unit encountered in the generation of electricity through the above methods.
NUCLEAR |
9 paisas |
HYDEL |
12 paisas |
THERMAL |
70 paisas |
Source : Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation ( KESC ).
Thus it obvious that Hydel Power is one of the cheapest ways to produce electricity.
Here, the topic is the peak generation of1450MW of hydel power, through the Ghazi Barotha project, which is nearly half of what Tarbela Dam is producing right now.
A brief note about the present condition of the generation of electricity in Pakistan may be interesting at this stage. As in every other field, this country is suffering with a crisis in power generation also. Even in this developed age, 67 % of our population lives in darkness, without electricity. Due to a high population growth rate, the demand for the supply of electricity is also growing at the rate of 9 % annually. On the other hand, the supply is increasing a the rate of about 7 % and it is mostly due to the thermal power stations. Due to the dependence of electricity generation on these thermal power stations the cost of electricity is also rising rapidly. So, this country is in desperate need for a Hydel Power Station either in the form of Kala Bagh Dam or the " Ghazi Barotha " .
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