'Wind corridor to add 1,000 megawatts to national grid by 2018'

The wind corridor will add 1,000 megawatts electricity to the national grid by 2018, as more investors are coming to wind industry, said Colonel Muzaffar Hussain (Retd), General Manager Plants Foundation Wind Energy Limited (FWEL). Although the production capacity is enormous to feed the country, yet the weak and obsolete power transmission is a major challenge to let the generation plants operate at full capacity.
He was talking to a group of journalists whose visit was arranged by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). He said Pakistan's wind corridor in district Thatta has the potential to generate up to 50,000 MW electricity, which will be sufficient enough to meet the country's power demands for years.
Balochistan coastal areas also have huge potential for alternative green energy but lack infrastructure facilities. The government has not conducted any survey in this regard, said Muzaffar. Interestingly, when the plants were installed and were made operational, they tripped 200 times due to poor transmission system. In the area, wind plants of 200 MW have been installed and another 200 are under construction. The government has set a target of 1000 MW by 2018.
Muzaffar said Fauji Foundation is the pioneer in the renewable energy and when it started work on the project, investors were hesitant to invest but after successful completion of its projects, confidence of investors boosted and a number of local and foreign investors are now taking keen interest in this sector. He said different local investors namely Yunus, Gul Ahmad, Tapal and Metro are also investing in the wind energy projects. Giving details about the FWEL-I, II, Muzaffar said the projects involve construction, erection and operation of 100 MW of wind generation capacity, at Kutti Kun, close to the port city of Karachi.
He said under the project, electricity will be sold to the national grid under a 20-year agreement. It would pay back its total investment within 10 years and after that the cost per unit of the wind energy would be about Rs 6 while currently its cost is around Rs 10.9 per unit, as the government recently reduced it from Rs 14.
The two projects [I and II] will cost $125 million each in which foreign component is 66 percent while local 34 percent. The ADB is the lead lender while National Bank of Pakistan is the lead local lender. He said the equity financing for the project was arranged by Fauji Foundation (20 percent), Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim (35 percent), CapAsia (A Malaysian private equity firm 25 percent) and Tapal Group (20 percent).
He said each wind tower has maximum electricity generating capacity of 2.5 MW and overall average yield efficiency is about 33 percent while the efficiency ratio in solar energy is only 18 percent. He said during its first year, the FWEL-II generated 114.5 GW electricity against the target of 143 GW. He said currently 132 kV transmission lines have been installed to transport electricity to the national grid and with the support of the ADB, they would be upgraded to 220 kV.
"We will achieve the target of power generation when the transmission lines are upgraded," he added. Highlighting the social impact of the project, the GM Plants said the project involved 800 local people during its construction period and now due to the development of road infrastructure, transportation has become easy. He said most of the local peoples' livelihood depends upon fishing and due to easy access they capture jellyfish, which is very costly, and take it to Karachi and earn a good amount.