Germany to provide 527mn Euros for energy sector

KARACHI: With 330 days of sunlight, more than 300 kilo-meters of strong wind corridor, flowing rivers and vast agricultural land, Pakistan is an ideal country to generate power from solar, wind, biogas and hydel power.

"Germany, with less than 100 sunny days round the year, has a capacity to produce more than 17,100 megawatts from solar energy. We are producing 50 percent of world's total solar energy," said the director of Ecological Institute Berlin, Andreas Kraemer during a presentation to the visiting Pakistani delegation consisting on officials from Water and Power Ministry, IPDF, private sector people and media persons during a recent visit to Federal Republic of Germany on the invitation of German Foreign Office.

The purpose of the invitation was to show Pakistani delegation what Germany can do for Pakistan in alternative energy and what possibilities for Pak-German co-operation are in alternative energy in future.

Kraemer said that the feed-in-tariff mechanism in the renewable energy policy 2000 has played a great role in increasing the share of renewable energy in the country's total power generation.

He offered the services of his institute in helping Pakistan to chalk out policies to encourage investment in renewable energy in the country. He said cost of solar energy can be reduced through subsidies.

Divisional Head, Cultural and Media Relations with Africa, Asia and Australia/the Pacific and Latin America Caribbean, German Foreign

Office, Michael Siebert said that alternative energy was high on agenda during last year meetings between German Chancellor Ms Moral and Pakistani leadership.

He said lot of potential existed for cooperation between the two countries to capitalize alternative energy and Pakistan can do more with German assistance and expertise.

"We are working with our partners in Europe, China, Africa and we also want to do this in Pakistan. We want to transfer technology regarding solar energy", he added.

Siebert said that the decision on atomic energy has been taken and the bills are tabled in German Parliament after reaching consensus with all political parties in the country. This is high on our agenda which is agreed last year between all political forces in Germany", he opined.

He said that Germany will cut carbon emission by 80 to 95 percent by 2050 and improve energy efficiency by 2.1 percent.

Desk Officer for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development Tore Matheson said Germany has contributed a total amount of 768 million Euros to the energy sector in Pakistan.

He said that a total worth of finalized programmes in the energy sector is about 527 million Euros.

Germany has provided over 200 million Euros for the construction of various small and medium size hide projects and installation and rehabilitation of transmission lines in Khyber Pakhtoonkhawa during 2009-10. We will provide another 48.5 million euros for the development of alternative energy and energy efficiency this year, he added.

He said that out of this amount, about 100 million euros are for small and medium size hydel projects in KPK including Lavi, Trapphi,Basho, Harpo, Keyal Khawar while the rest is for laying transmission lines including Gakkhar and Gazi Road.

Chief Executive Officer of Renac Renewable Academy AG, Berthold Breid said that his organization, a private sector initiative, has so far transferred and installed solar roof technology to 22 countries under public private partnership.

Renac has partnership of renewable academies from 96 countries and more than 1,500 participants from these countries have been benefited from our expertise in the technology, financing, management and market development of renewable energy and energy efficiency.

He said that Renac has fixed as well as mobile training facilities for photovoltaic, solar thermal, wind and energy efficiency technologies.

A faculty member of Renac Frank Jackson said that stable grid is needed for transmitting renewable energy.

Talking of possibilities for Pakistan, he said that there is a lot of potential of small hydel power projects. This is cost effective compared to other options of renewable energy. Similarly, bio-energy is another area which has a massive potential for a country like Pakistan. In some of the areas in Germany, 60 percent of the electricity comes from bio-gas.

A visit to a bio-gas plant in the suburbs of Berlin at Rathenow was a worth mentioning and a good experience of how agriculture produce or waste can be used to generate gas and electricity. This is a project of EMB Energie Mark Brandenburg GmbH. It is a part of an integrated project which also included wind and solar farms.

About 43 wind turbines are producing 74 megawatts of electricity per hour at Feldheim, Berlin while the solar farm has 8000 solar panels. Each section is producing 2.25 megawatts each per hour.

An energetic young head of Berlin office of Enercon, Ms Ruth Brand-Schock, in her presentation said that the turnover of her company was 3.5 billion Euros. Enercon, a top manufacturer of latest wind and solar plants in Germany, has 60.4 percent market share in Germany, followed by Vestas, Nordex and GE Energy and it is ranked 4^th in the world with 8.5 percent global share.

Of the renewable energies (9400 MW), wind power has the share of 6.5 percent, biogas 5.2 percent, hydropower 3.3 percent and solar 1.1 percent.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011