The poor air quality in the country is not just due to agriculture and crop burning, and blaming it all on Indian crop burning is too naïve at a time when a multitude of issues at home have gradually been adding to what is called smog. And one of these issues is the country’s long dependence on dirty fuel for power generation. Without getting into the discussion of the merits and demerits of relying on fossil fuel for power generation in Pakistan including furnace and high sulphur furnace oil, the fuel emission from these power plants has been a key ingredient to deteriorating air quality.
Hence, the role and need for renewable energy has become too crucial for Pakistan that goes beyond meeting global greenhouse emission standards – even more so as the reliance on coal is also increasing. The health repercussions are immediate and too alarming. The share of renewable energy in the country as of FY18 stood at 3 percent (excluding hydel power) according to Pakistan Energy Yearbook 2018, which is likely to have increased to 4 percent in FY19 as renewables have been a focus area for the government.
In order to reach the ambitious goal of having 20-30 percent share of renewables in the total energy mix by 2030, a lot more is needed than just signing MOUs and LOIs. Recently, there has been some good news as the government has signed agreement of ‘Super Six’ wind power projects to produce 310MW, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has announced to invest $450 million in these six wind power projects.
The table shows that over 1000MW of wind power capacity is operational. However, the seasonality and variability factor is what determines the total contribution to the national grid. How much of the additional capacity by 2030 would that be of wind and solar, surely Pakistan won’t be facing the “excess windmills” issue Germany is facing as large chunk of these additional would likely be hydel sources.
Even so, the tariff structure needs reforms. The latest Renewable Energy Policy 2019 has been prepared with features like elimination of cost plus tariff and upfront tariff; and contract awarding based on open and transparent bidding. Then there is a need for government’s attention in developing requisite transmission and distribution infrastructure – something that has always been neglected during the process of capacity additions in the power sector. Since the site for these power plants is most likely to be away from the load centres the need of a reliable T&D system is even more important along with capacity building on the technical and institutional side.
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