Pakistan’s future hinges upon solar, wind power generation: PM Shehbaz

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Monday that the country needs to shift its power generation capacity to solar and wind power, stressing that the current electricity generation mechanisms are costly and depleting the national exchequer, APP reported.

During a briefing at the Mohmand Dam site, PM Shehbaz said Pakistan had been facing a very acute problem of expensive power generation due to the import of expensive fuels and then subsidizing it for the consumers.

He said it was a three-tier loss to the national exchequer, as the country had been importing costly fuels for the power generation and then reducing the cost of the power for the consumers.

Wapda chief reviews situation at site of Mohmand Dam project

The premier cautioned that the national exchequer and resources would not be sufficient to meet such expensive production of power.

The prime minister, referring to the timely completion of the hydel power projects, opined that these hydel power projects and tapping of other natural resources like solar and wind "are our future and we need to immediately shift in that direction, otherwise the economy will continue bleeding annually."

The premier also expressed his serious concerns over the damages caused to dykes and the construction site of the dam in the recent floods, saying that the development would delay the project's completion time and could hamper the country’s progress.

He said the construction of the dam was carried out by the Chinese and Pakistani people, and it would generate 800 MWs of inexpensive power besides, helping in water reservation and providing protection against flash flooding.

"For the production of power with the help of solar and wind power systems, natural resources should be tapped, like construction of dams which would be helpful in the storage of water," he said.

Underlining the need for timely completion of dams, he said the country’s prosperity and economic development hinged upon their full and timely functioning.

The prime minister directed the relevant authorities to investigate the matter of impact caused by the recent flood by hiring an independent third party.

He said there was a need to look into the factors as to why dams were breached by floods and what steps would be taken to avoid such damages in the future along with devising a future roadmap.

The prime minister expressing his concerns said that such a thing had happened in the Neelum-Jhelum power project and now occurred here due to floods.

He said in the Neelum-Jhelum project, they had decided to hire independent consultants to thoroughly investigate the issue in a transparent manner.

Earlier, Wapda Chairman Lt Gen (retd) Sajjad Ghani gave a briefing on the project.

Mohmand Dam is being constructed on River Swat in District Mohmand of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which would be completed in 2026.

On completion, the dam will store about 1.2 million acre-feet (MAF) of water and help mitigate floods in Peshawar, Charsadda, and Nowshera. Besides, supplementing 160,000 acres of existing land, about 18,237 acres of new land will also be irrigated.

Mohmand Dam Power House will generate 800 megawatts (MW) of hydel electricity, contributing 2.86 billion units of low-cost and environment-friendly hydel electricity annually to the national grid. Annual benefits of the project have been estimated at Rs51.6 billion.