Rina Saeed Khan -
Solar energy production in Pakistan is poised to take off just as the South Asian country is ramping up coal production to help plug a crippling power crisis.
New high quality solar maps show Pakistan is one of the world’s best countries for producing solar energy because of its arid climate and latitude.
“Pakistan’s solar potential is huge,” said Jamil Masud, an energy expert who helped draft Pakistan’s national renewable energy policy.
“The government is waking up to its potential,” said Masud, a director of Hagler Bailly Pakistan, an energy and environmental consulting firm in Islamabad. “With the prices of (photovoltaic panels) falling drastically in the last four years, the switchover to renewables will happen —gradually.”
Pakistan’s current national power shortfall is estimated to be more than 6,000 megawatts, causing long power outages across the country.
The country has a range of major solar projects in the pipeline, amounting to more than 4,400 megawatts in potential power, said Amjad Awan, CEO of the federal government’s Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB).
Until now, the country’s lack of detailed solar maps has held back development of renewable energy, said Ali Habib, managing partner of Shama Solar, a company based in Lahore.
That changed in March, when Pakistan became one of the few developing countries to produce the maps.
The solar maps highlight the regions most suitable for solar power generation.
This means investors do not have to spend significant time and money gathering data for their projects.
“Solar is already taking off in Pakistan,” said Fariel Salahuddin, an energy specialist based in Karachi.
Pakistan’s National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has issued guidelines for net metering so consumers can now sell excess solar energy they produce back to the grid, Salahuddin said.
However, the government still needs to simplify connection rules and procedures for small-scale solar power to be more widely adopted, Masud said. — Thomson Reuters Foundation
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