Tapping wind energy

The Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB) has issued LoIs to 41 national and 15 international companies for generation of 700 megawatts of electricity by 2010 as a part of the government's broader strategy to meet at least 5 percent of the country's total energy requirements through alternative sources.
AEDB Director-General Mujahid Sadiq, in an interview to Business Recorder, has disclosed that two investors, one from Malaysia and one local, are currently engaged in negotiations on power purchase deals, while four others are trying to fulfil requirements such as power generation licences and determination of tariff rates etc.
The recent discovery of a vast wind corridor at Gharo-Keti Bandar in Sindh has apparently prompted the authorities to focus on wind energy. The quantum of initial investment needed to start the wind energy projects is quite substantial. According to Sadiq, an amount of $80 million is needed for installing a single wind power plant of 50 megawatts.
The cost has shot up from $50 million to $80 million in just two years, which shows the prohibitive price the country has had to pay for bureaucratic procrastination and inertia. Further, 1000 to 1200 acres of land is also needed to produce 50 megawatts of electricity.
Sadiq has rightly asserted that skyrocketing oil prices in the world market have prompted governments to go in for alternative sources of energy, which are much cheaper as compared to thermal power. AEDB has meanwhile started work on eight medium range, ADB-funded power projects in NWFP and Punjab while it is trying to provide electricity to 300 in Balochistan and to 100 Sindh villages through solar energy.
Despite well-publicised efforts by the present dispensation to diversify and augment energy sources, it has failed to add even a single extra megawatt to the installed generating capacity it inherited seven years ago! Natural and man-made causes, and rosy bureaucratic projections, have apparently been largely responsible for this failure.
The country's annual energy deficit has meanwhile been rapidly mounting, and according to one projection, it will be at least 1,000 megawatts from 2007 onwards. The country's annual demand for electricity is growing by six to seven percent per annum under pressure of industrialisation and urbanisation, and by the year 2012 the country will be in need of an additional 5,000 megawatts of electricity. Harnessing the alternative sources of energy, both solar and wind, despite the high initial installation cost, is the second best option after hydro power.
Pakistan has unfortunately had to place excessive reliance on imported oil for meeting its energy deficit. It had last year imported over 80 percent of its crude oil requirements, thereby burdening the economy with an oil import bill of $3 billion, amounting to nearly one-fifth of the country's total export earnings.
Obviously, we cannot afford this huge drain on the exchequer. We should go in for alternative sources of energy on a massive scale. Solar parks and windmills are practical options that need to be seriously explored and tapped.
There is a plenty of sunshine throughout the year in Balochistan, while the massive wind corridor discovered in Sindh recently can be utilised to tap this abundant source of renewable energy. In addition to Balochistan, solar parks can also be established in the coastal regions of Sindh.
If properly harnessed, the alternative sources of energy, which are plentiful in Pakistan, can appreciably reduce our dependence on such expensive sources as oil and gas.
A beneficial quality of solar energy is that it can be easily converted into electric energy through use of photovoltaic cells. Pressing into service such innovative technologies and techniques has become all the more important in view of the country's burgeoning energy deficit. AEDB has done well to issue LoIs to local and foreign companies. It should now see to it that the projects are finalised and implemented expeditiously so that their cost does not go up further.