The Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB) Chief Executive Arif Alauddin hoped that 500 megawatt (MW) of electricity will be added to the national grid during the next few months.
While talking to the official TV channel, he said that a number of projects were in the pipeline to overcome the energy crisis in the country which would provide relief to the people.
He said his board was mandated only to attract private sector investment while the government sector was meant only to regulate and facilitate the process.
He further said that Pakistan was relying heavily on fossil fuels to meet its energy requirements and the nation was spending more than $ 11 billion on the import of petroleum products every year.
He added that it would increase to $ 38 billion by 2015 which would further increase the strategic risk for Pakistan as it was heavily dependent on the fuel for its vital services.
He said that after the establishment of the AEDB in 2003, Pakistan had made considerable progress in this field.
While replying to a question, he said that the AEDB recently approved New Park Energy Phase I, a 400-MW wind project near Port Qasim. With the help of China 3 Gorges Corporation, a 50 MW wind energy plan at Jhimpir in Sindh would be completed next year.
The wind power pilot project had been made operational by installing a wind turbine at Daman-i-Koh in Islamabad, he added.
The AEDB Chairman said that recently a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) had been signed at the second two-day meeting of Pak-China Joint Energy Group (JEWG) for setting up wind energy projects with the initial accumulative capacity of 550MW. Moreover, the government had also created a fund to mainstream and implement alternative energy technologies in the country.
As per the breakup, 340,000 MW could be generated from the wind energy, 2,900,000 from solar power, 50,000 MW from hydro energy (large), 3,100 MW from hydro energy (Small), 1800 MW from biogas cogeneration, 500 MW from waste materials while 550 MW could be generated from geothermal energy sources, he added.
In reply to another question, he said that a number of countries had successfully developed renewable energy sources based on wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, ocean tides and bio-fuels to minimize their dependence on fossil fuels.
He said that currently 11 wind projects of 556 MW of accumulative capacity had reached an advanced stage of completion and some of these would start supplying electricity by the end of this year, whereas the others would be functional by 2013.
He also said that the government was determined to overcome the energy crisis in the country and had taken several measures in the past in this regard and had been carrying on several new measures to provide relief to the common man and help boost industry in the country.
He further said that the government had initiated a fast track scheme to develop additional 1582.4 MW through private sector which would be commissioned by December 2013, adding that nine solar PV projects of 228 MW were also under development.
He added that the government had also taken measures to promote use of solar applications that include solar systems, solar water heaters and solar water pumps in the country.
According to him, Pakistan had been currently building solar power plants in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan and the program was launched in collaboration by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) of China and private sector energy companies of Pakistan.
He mentioned that in May this year, Pakistan had stepped forth by inaugurating the first ever solar power on-grid power plant in Islamabad, adding that over 12,000 solar water heater and 754 solar water pumps were imported to introduce the new technology besides reducing dependency on national grid station.
Efforts were also being made to convince the owners of sugar mills to use cane waste for power generation and two units of 34 MW were operational and three new projects were in advance stages, the chairman said.
