Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani on Tuesday directed the ministries of finance and water and power to provide solar electricity to far-flung villages, located away from the national grid.
Chairing a meeting to review Renewable Energy Development Projects at the PM’s House, the PM directed officers that off-grid applications such as solar water heater, biogas and water pumping be implemented through renewable resource. Gilani said that such applications would result in significant saving of gas, electricity and also provide organic fertilizers for farmers. He said that the government had initiated a number of projects in the power sector to overcome energy shortage in the country. The PM said that apart from hydel power generation, the country possessed enormous potential of power generation through other renewable energy resources of wind, solar, geo-thermal and bio-fuel energy.
He said that wind energy could produce 350,000MWs, solar 2.9 millionMWs and geo-thermal 2500MWs. Board COO Arif Allaudin said that in view of vast potential of renewable energy in Pakistan, this sector had become the investor’s choice with offers from the private sector of generating 1500MWs of electricity. The COO apprised the meeting that projects of 400MWs would start by this year and units would start generating electricity early next year.
