The use of fossil fuel is still the dominant source of power generation that accounts for around 65% globally. However, the tilt in favour of renewable resources is changing at a much faster pace than what was envisaged in the last decade. The driving forces that propelled the fast deployment have been improvement in technology and reduction in prices to harness renewable resources. The investments in PV solar projects is more so, as the world realised solar is a 'free fuel' and environmentally friendly. The price of PV solar cells has dropped from $76 in 1997 to $0.30, and efficiency has improved from 14% to up to 22%.Even the wind turbine technology has improved many folds, and now the battery storage is focus of R & D for future large commercial scale deployment. There is a massive shift from fossil fuel to renewables globally that is propelled by incentives given by the governments.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the global renewable trend is expected to lead to an installed capacity of 30% by 2024 from 26% at present. A study conducted by Bloomberg NEO reveals that by 2050 around US$ 11.5 trillion will be spent on power plants and renewables will be the dominant source (2/3rd) of the total energy. Fossil fuel electricity production will go down from 63% to 29%. And electricity consumption from renewables will be used as high as 87% in Europe, 55% in the US and 75% in India.
Now coming to homeland - Pakistan's last renewable policy has expired in March 2018. Since then Pakistan is without a renewable power policy. It's over one and a half years that Pakistan is without a renewable policy. It's not encouraging for developers/investors. The draft renewable power policy circulated and discussed among the stakeholders is yet to be approved by Council of Common Interest (CCI). The renewable policy is on International Competitive Bidding (ICB) that is a very good sign. ICB must have been done long time ago. If executed in true spirit, this will bring confidence to world class investors. However, projects based on ICB means that power ministry must first approve a project for which consultants need to be hired to prepare documents. The process of hiring the consultants, finalization of documents, invitation of prospective developers, scrutiny of documents, approval of interested developers, bidding process, and subsequent award of project can take easily around a year. After financial close of the project, construction will commence. If at all the policy is in place today and project is identified and the government machinery is geared up to make the project success, it will take at least 3 years for the project till the commercial operation of electricity. At this moment, we are very far from the track that leads significant augmentation of renewables in our system.
International trend for PV solar projects may be an eye opener for policy makers and implementation agencies. Here is a list of top ten countries leading the solar 'tsunami':
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No Countries Total
MW
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1 China 175,018
2 EU 115,234
3 USA 62,200
4 Japan 55,500
5 Germany 45,930
6 India 26,869
7 Italy 20,120
8 UK 13,108
9 Australia 11,300
10 France 9,483
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Source: IEA
Just last year China added 45,000MW of solar PV to their system and in the same year India added 10,000MW to its national grid. Germany is planning to add another 15,000 MW in the next decade. India is adding mega solar PV projects and has plans of doubling their solar capacity. Abu Dhabi emirate is executing the plan of introducing 1,000MW of PV solar projects every year for the next 10 years. The Indian state of Gujarat has a population of 68 million with an installed capacity of 32,290MW, including 8,600MW of renewables.
If India can add 10,000MW in one year, why can't we add just 1,000MW of solar PV power projects to our grid?
Pakistan's installed capacity is 34,282MW, of which renewable share is insignificant (not even in four digits-the outdated and sketchy website of AEDB doesn't give any such figure). With solar energy about to reach the iconic terawatt (TW) milestone of globally installed PV capacity, we are nowhere near even 1GW mark. We need to increase the share of PV solar projects in our system to harness the abundant sunshine in Pakistan. And here we are without the basic renewable policy document. We will be able to sustain and even reduce the electricity tariff only if renewables, especially PV solar projects, are introduced to the system on a war footing.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019
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