LAHORE: Pakistan has been ranked 3rd in the world among top 20 countries for newly installed hydropower capacity in 2018.

The country was placed at third position by the United Kingdom-based renowned organisation — International Hydropower Association (IHA) — in its recently issued report titled “2019: Hydropower Status Report — Sector Trends and Insights”.

Formed under the auspices of Unesco in 1995 as a forum to promote and disseminate good practice about hydropower, IHA champions continuous improvement and sustainable practices across the sector.

According to IHA report while listing down top 20 countries by newly installed capacity states that Pakistan managed to add 2,487MW of hydel electricity in 2018 following China and Brazil at the first and second rung that added 8,540MW and 3,866MW to their systems respectively.

Turkey with an addition of 1085MW and Angola with an addition of 668MW remained at 4th and 5th positions respectively as far as newly installed hydro capacity is concerned. The neighbouring India stood at the 8th position by adding 535MW hydel electricity to its system recently.

The report places Tajikistan at No.6 for adding 605 MW followed by Ecuador (556MW), India (535MW), Norway (419), Canada (401MW), Austria (385), Combodia (300MW), Laos (254MW), Zimbabwe (150MW), United States (141MW), Iran (140MW), Congo (121MW), Colombia (111MW), Peru (111MW) and Chile (110MW).

As far as recent addition of hydropower in Pakistan is concerned, the country registered an increase of 36 per cent in its total hydel generation capacity in just one year, as prior to this, Wapda could only manage to take its hydel generation to 6,902 MW in 59 years of its inception from the year 1958 to 2017. The country has an indentified potential of generating 60,000MW of low-cost hydel electricity.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2019