Title: Operational performance evaluation and efficiency assessment of thermal power sectors of Pakistan using data envelopment analysis

Authors: Sadam Hussain; Faheemullah Shaikh; Laveet Kumar; Zulfiqar Ali

Addresses: Energy System Engineering Program, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan ' Department of Electrical Engineering, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan ' Energy System Engineering Program, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract: Energy is a life-line for almost all human activities and progress. Retrospective analysis of the increase in energy demand shows that meeting future energy requirements would be one of the severe problems to sustain the socio-economic activities in the world. The aims and objective of this study is to evaluate the power generation capacity of different thermal power plant in Pakistan using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Performance comparison includes refined furnace oil versus natural gas versus dual fuel versus coal and also GENCOs versus IPPs versus K-Electric power plants. Finding from the results indicates that natural gas outperformed as compared with refined furnace oil-based power plants dual fuel-based, coal-based thermal power plants. Results show that the performance of IPPs is high in comparison to K-Electric and GENCOs. Accordingly, based on these results several policy implications have been planned to increase the performance of available thermal power sector in Pakistan.

Keywords: operational performance; efficiency assessment; data envelopment analysis; thermal power plants; Pakistan.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2023.135491

International Journal of Operational Research, 2023 Vol.48 No.4, pp.429 - 444

Received: 23 Jul 2020
Accepted: 08 Mar 2021
Published online: 15 Dec 2023 *

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