Large-scale, continuously operational commercial electric utility power plants are typical in their construction. Almost all electric power plants generate alternating current electricity at frequencies of 50 Hz or 60 Hz using three-phase electrical generators. Large organizations, especially those where steam is produced for other purposes, may have their own power plants to provide heating or electricity to their facilities. The majority of ships were propelled during the majority of the 20th century by steam-driven power systems.
Thermal power plants can be built using a variety of energy sources, including fossil fuels, geothermal, nuclear, solar, biofuels, and waste incineration. In addition to producing electricity, some thermal power plants are also built to produce heat for the desalination of water, district heating, or industrial applications.
The saleable energy produced as a percentage of the heating value of the fuel consumed is the definition of a traditional thermal power plant’s energy efficiency. The energy conversion efficiency for a single-cycle gas turbine range from 20 to 35%. Modern fossil fuel plants operate at 46% efficiency, while conventional coal-based power plants function at 35 to 38% efficiency at 170 bar and 570 °C. Systems with a combined cycle can achieve higher values. Their efficiency is constrained and restricted by the laws of thermodynamics, just as that of all heat engines.
A pressurized water reactor (PWR) uses a certain kind of huge heat exchanger to thermally connect the primary (reactor plant) and secondary (steam plant) systems, which produce steam. This device is referred to as a “steam generator” in the nuclear power industry. In a boiling water reactor, water boils inside the reactor core without the usage of a separate steam generator.
Heat recovery steam generators, which use heat from industrial processes, most frequently hot exhaust from a gas turbine, are also capable of creating steam in some industrial contexts. For the steam turbine that powers the electrical generator, the steam-generating boiler must produce steam at the high purity, pressure, and temperature required.
Thermal power plants must release any energy that is not used to generate electricity into the atmosphere as heat. This waste heat can be condensed and discarded in cooling towers or using cooling water. Cogeneration refers to the process of using waste heat for district heating instead. Desalination facilities are a significant class of thermal power plants; these plants are often found in arid regions with abundant natural gas, and they produce both electricity and fresh water as significant byproducts. Different efficiency restrictions apply to other kinds of power plants. The majority of hydropower plants in the United States convert water’s kinetic energy into electricity with an efficiency of over 90%, whereas a wind turbine’s efficiency is constrained by Betz’s rule to roughly 59.3% and real wind turbine performance is lower.
For contemporary utility-connected generators, the generating voltage ranges from 11 kV in smaller units to 30 kV in larger units. Due to their higher current than the cables used in smaller machines, the high-voltage leads for generators are often made of wide aluminum channels. They are supported on adequate insulators and housed in well-grounded aluminum bus ducts. In order to connect to a high-voltage electrical substation (often in the range of 115 kV to 765 kV) for onward transmission by the local power grid, the high-voltage leads from the generator are linked to step-up transformers. Additionally, the generator uses water cooling. An insulating barrier, such as Teflon, is utilized to connect the water line and the high-voltage windings of the generator because the generator coils are at a potential of around 22 kV. It is utilized low-conductivity demineralized water.
While air collected via filters at the input can be used to cool small generators, bigger ones often require separate cooling equipment. Because hydrogen has the highest known heat transfer coefficient of any gas and because of its low viscosity, which lowers windage losses, it is utilized for cooling in an oil-sealed casing.n

In light of the present policy of the government of Pakistan to expand its Aviation Industry and to exploit the potential of being a new Aviation hub, Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) has assigned National Engineering Services Pakistan (Pvt.) Ltd. (NESPAK), the premier consulting firm of Pakistan, following mega development projects in the aviation sector:
Up-gradation and Expansion of Begum Nusrat Bhutto (BNB) Sukkur Airport as an International Airport for wide-body Aircraft with all allied facilities:
Design and Construction Supervision for Expansion and Renovation of Passenger Terminal Building and Allied Infrastructure Facilities at Allama Iqbal International Airport, Lahore
Aviation Tower at Islamabad
A Formal Consultancy Contract Signing ceremony was held at Allama Iqbal International Airport Lahore on 09th November 2022. The ceremony was witnessed by Khawaja Saad Rafiq, Federal Minister of Aviation, Mr. Khaqan Murtaza, DG PCAA, and Dr. Tahir Masood, Managing Director NESPAK.
The signing of the agreement was made by Engr. V. S. Sodha, Director P&D on behalf of PCAA, and Mr. Muhammad Farooq, GM/Head NESPAK Karachi Division for Sukkur and Lahore Airport and with Mr. Danish Raza, GM/Head NESPAK Islamabad Division for Aviation Tower Islamabad.
After the agreement signing ceremony, a brief presentation was given by MD NESPAK to the honorable Aviation Minister about the status of the BNB Sukkur Airport project. While briefing the Federal Minster for Aviation, salient features of the expansion plan including the extension of the Runway and Taxiway, Reconstruction of the Apron and Terminal Building along with other allied and support facilities were presented.
As per the presentation, the new Terminal Building and Airside Facilities shall cater to the requirements of Code E Aircrafts (Boeing 777) for the next 20 years. In addition to connecting the population of areas to international destinations, the Airport will also cater to the requirement of exporting local handicraft of the area, fresh vegetables, and fruits to nearby Middle East countries.
Federal Minister for Aviation appreciated the efforts of NESPAK and instructed PCAA and NESPAK to complete the planning, design, and bidding phase within 6 months to complete the construction activities in the estimated period of the next 24 months.
Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) has also planned to construct a 38-storey high-rise office cum commercial tower at Jinnah Avenue, Blue Area Islamabad.
The PCAA Tower, which is the first-ever tallest building in Islamabad, is going to be an iconic building with around 38-storeys with state-of-the-art facilities. The tower will house various directorates and branches of PCAA as well as airline corporate offices, airline booking centers, business centers, seminar and conference halls, media centers, financial institutes and banks, recreational facilities including an Aviation Science Museum, Art Gallery, Health and Fitness Centre, Indoor Sports facilities, Baby Day Care Centre, Food Courts, Hotel/Lodging Facilities.
The building while housing offices of various cadres of PCAA will be having covered area of around 850,000 sq. ft with an anticipated project cost of around Rs. 14 billion.
The PCAA Tower, being a green building project, is aimed to achieve sustainability, water conservation, energy efficiency, and environment-friendly design with less carbon footprint.n

he 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt offers an opportunity for world leaders to step up on climate change.
Last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) laid down the basic rules for the implementation of the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change. At COP26, there was a stronger global response in a number of areas, in an effort to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
This year’s COP27 in Egypt, however, will have to go beyond commitments and establish clear mechanisms to achieve – and in many cases go beyond – what was agreed in Glasgow. With a developing country holding the presidency, there are high expectations for agreements on key agenda items such as adaptation, loss and damage, finance, capacity building, justice, and climate empowerment. However, wrangling 198 parties that are negotiating for 7.9 billion people is no easy task.
Held hostage by the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire negotiation process took a year to get back on track ahead of the Glasgow conference. But as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa warned, “we don’t have the luxury of time when it comes to the biggest threat to humanity”.
The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that global surface temperatures have increased by 0.8-1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It warns that further warming will be extremely damaging, causing additional human and natural systems to reach their adaptation limits.
Concerningly, several observers pointed out that the roadmap to achieve global mitigation and adaptation goals remained unclear after Glasgow, and there was a lack of unity on key agenda items.
As such, negotiators at COP27 will have to address the agreement’s ambiguities to restore faith in the negotiation process. But how?
First, while achieving mitigation goals and net-zero targets remains key, adaptation measures will be equally important. For developing countries, the annual cost of adaptation efforts could reach $140-300 billion by 2030. As temperatures rise, so do the costs – undermining the ability of the most vulnerable nations to adapt – so it’s vital the Paris Agreement goals are met.
Even so, negotiators need to emerge from COP27 with a clear roadmap for doubling adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2025, which was one of the commitments at the Glasgow conference.
There also needs to be progress on enhancing adaptation action, reducing finance gaps, and national adaptation plans, all of which must take into account local contexts in order to ensure a just transition.
Second, in the face of growing climate change impacts, the issue of ‘loss and damage’ remains critical. Between 2000-2019, over 475,000 people lost their lives as a direct result of more than 11,000 extreme weather events globally, with economic losses amounting to around $2.56 trillion. This damage is expected to worsen as global temperatures rise and severe weather events become more frequent. Moreover, evidence has shown that climate impacts disproportionately affect developing countries.
As such, there is growing pressure on major polluters to pay for the loss and damage they caused through their emissions. Prior to COP27, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “failure to act on loss and damage will lead to more loss of trust and more climate damage. This is a moral imperative that cannot be ignored and COP27 must be the place for action on loss and damage.”
Progress on loss and damage so far has been mixed, with negotiators in Glasgow failing to reach an agreement on the issue. Instead, a Glasgow Dialogue was launched to discuss arrangements for funding by 2024, though the parties were not able to reach a consensus to include this as an agenda item during the June 2022 inter-sessional meeting in Bonn.
But developing countries are calling for a finance facility for loss and damage to be agreed upon at COP27 and, after significant negotiations over recent days, the issue was added as a formal agenda item to reach conclusions “no later” than 2024. But for meaningful progress to be achieved at this conference, countries must unite to address loss and damage through adequate and fit-for-purpose financing, differentiating it from mitigation, adaptation, and humanitarian aid.
Third, the voices of communities at the forefront of the climate crisis must continue to be heard. The interlinked global crises of climate change and biodiversity loss were recognised at COP26, as well as the central role Indigenous peoples and youth will have in dealing with the future consequences of present failures. COP27 needs to build on this momentum to empower Indigenous people and youth in ongoing climate discussions.
Finally, there are high expectations for stronger commitments on finance. Finance is a cross-cutting issue that flows from mitigation to loss and damage, and the funding gaps have been growing each year.
At COP26, parties noted with “deep regret” that the goal of jointly mobilising $100 billion per year by 2020 had not been met. In fact, between 2013-2020, only 67 per cent on average of committed funds had actually been distributed. At this conference, developed nations must step up and do more to supporting developing countries that need additional financial resources, especially in the form of grants.
What’s clear is that the outcomes of COP27 will have a significant impact on levels of trust in climate negotiations. Without commitments on the full and timely delivery of financial support, as well as meaningful progress on loss and damage, adaptation, and long-term mitigation goals, the trust and goodwill that are critical in this process may well be impossible to restore. – ER Monitoring Desk/APP Society n

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has launched the Environmental and Social Risk Management (ESRM) Implementation Manual for banks and development finance institutions (DFIs) to promote green banking in the country.
The manual was launched by Governor State Bank Jameel Ahmed in the inaugural session of Sustainable Banking Conference, organised here by SBP in collaboration with IFC, a member of the World Bank Group.
The objective of the conference was to create critically needed awareness related to climate change and sustainability within the financial sector and to launch the ESRM Implementation Manual.
Governor SBP in his keynote address remarked that ESRM manual was a procedural guide for the banks and DFIs to establish their environmental social risk management systems, as per SBP’s Green Banking Guidelines (GBGs).
He said that the conference was an effort to spread awareness on the impact of climate change and environmental degradation on the financial sector of Pakistan and a step towards SBP’s endeavor to reduce the vulnerability of financial sector from such risks.
Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change as we have witnessed during the recent floods; therefore, it is critical time for Pakistan’s financial sector to become sensitive to financial consequences arising from environmental and social risks, he added.
SBP has also undertaken certain initiatives like Green Banking Guidelines and Financing Scheme for Renewable Energy to ingrain sustainability considerations into the financial sector as per international best practices, the SBP governor noted.
He encouraged the entire banking industry to take full benefit of the manual to establish their ESRM systems and procedures and assured that the central bank would keep on providing necessary support and guidance at every stage of ESRM implementation. IFC Regional Director for Pakistan, Afghanistan and Middle East Khawaja Aftab Ahmed, termed launch of ESRM manual as a significant step towards promoting sustainable banking practices in Pakistan.
He added that the manual can help the banking industry better manage environmental and social risks throughout their lending practices, and subsequently enable a green and inclusive economic recovery at a critical time.
The conference was attended by IFC Country Manager Zeeshan Ahmed Sheikh, Consul General of Japan in Karachi Toshio Odagiri, Chairperson, PSX Board Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, IFC Senior Policy Adviser Yaseen Anwar and other high profile dignitaries besides presidents and CEOs of banks and DFIs, senior officials from Pakistan Banks Association, Sindh Environmental Protection Agency and other relevant stakeholders