ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has tremendous potential in green energy resources, particularly solar and wind, which need to be tapped to help the country move towards clean energy ecosystem and tackle the climate change effects.
Pakistan’s heavy reliance on high-cost dirty fossil fuels to make electricity has widened the trade deficit to alarming levels as oil products make up the bulk of the country’s total exports.
Tuaha Adil, a research economist at Policy Research Institute of Market Economy, informed WealthPK that Pakistan has great potential in solar and wind energy as it has an average nine and a half hours of sunlight daily, which is enough to produce a huge amount of solar electricity.
He said Quaid-i-Azam Solar Park (a photovoltaic power station) was established in 2016 with a designed capacity to generate 1,000MW.
He said that with the rising costs of electricity in Pakistan and an unreliable grid supply, more industries and commercial organisations are exploring solar solutions. “There has also been a strong rise in domestic installation of rooftop photovoltaic panels in larger cities,” he explained.
He said that the government introduced net metering regulations in September 2015 for solar projects under 1MW. “The government is targeting to add approximately 3,000MW of solar power to the grid through net metering to energise at least one million customers.
According to Tuaha Adil, the total installed power generation capacity of the country was 39,772MW in 2021. The public sector power plants contributed 20,820MW while private sector power plants contributed 18,925MW.
The above table shows that the electricity produced through thermal sources had a whopping 63.1% share; while the solar and wind energy contributed only 4.4% to the total energy mix.
According to the World Bank, Pakistan has tremendous potential in generating solar energy by utilising only 0.071% of the country’s total area. Additionally, Pakistan has several well-known wind corridors with average wind speeds of 7.87m/s in only 10% of its windiest areas. Despite having launched a number of projects, the installed capacity of solar and wind energy in Pakistan is just over 1,500MW, which is just 4% of total capacity, and only around 2% of total generation.
The World Bank’s Variable Renewable Energy Integration and Planning Study states that Pakistan’s target is to increase its renewable energy sources – solar and wind power – to 20% of its electricity mix by 2025, and 30% by 2030, which will be around 24,000MW.
As per WealthPK research, Pakistan can provide cheap electricity to consumers by effectively implementing green energy projects. This will help the country achieve greater energy security, reduce carbon emissions and save up to $5 billion over the next 20 years.
To achieve such targets, a huge and abrupt development of solar and wind projects is required through competitive bidding, while serious efforts should also be made to reduce reliance on uneconomical fuel oil and coal to produce electricity.
Besides focusing on greener sources of energy, Pakistan also needs to enhance the share of hydropower in the total energy mix by tapping into the vast potential available in the country’s north.
INP
