KARACHI:Former State Bank governor Dr Shamshad Akhtar on Thursday criticized insufficient financial cooperation extended by leading greenhouse gas emitters to climate change vulnerable countries and said the climate change mitigation and adaptation annually required huge funds which was well beyond Pakistan’s financial resources.
She was speaking at the first “Annual State of Renewables Conference 2022” organized here by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in collaboration with Unilever.
Dr Shamshad stressed on the need to decarbonize energy generation, reforming policies to address high import dependence, and removing low tariff and subsidies on energy supply to power plants and industries to reduce financial and environmental implications.
SDPI Executive Director Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri called public and private sectors and civil society organizations to collaborate for concerted actions for climate change mitigation. He stressed on pacing up transition to renewable energy in Pakistan to address the energy crisis and expensive import-based energy generation.
He said the devastating floods due to unprecedent monsoon in Pakistan were manifestation of climate change and renewable energy mix could play a crucial role in emission reduction to mitigate the disastrous impacts.
Sindh Secretary Energy Department Abu Bakar Ahmed, briefed the audience about various initiatives being taken by the provincial government, including solarization of public buildings such as schools, hospitals and 225 basic health clinics, the project to provide 200,000 solar home systems in 10 low energy access districts, and capacity building activities for domestic production of technology.
The waste to energy project was under deliberation for Karachi, which would be later expanded to rest of Sindh, he added.
Dr. Sebastian Paust, Counsellor Head of Development Cooperation of German Embassy, said Germany’s journey on climate change mitigation and energy transformation started in 1990’s based on just transition.
He said Germany had supported Pakistan’s renewable energy transition by providing 350 million euros for 16 projects and 30 million euros for technical co-operation in areas of energy transition, efficiency and electric vehicles.
Dr Ute Collier, Deputy Director of Knowledge, Policy, and Finance Centre, International Renewable Energy Agenda (IRENA) said half of emission reduction targets in Paris Agreement could be achieved through energy conservation and scaling up renewable energy.
She pointed out that in Pakistan half of the population lacked access to clean cooking energy while a quarter had no access to electricity, which showed the necessity of clean renewable energy transition.
Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB) Chief Executive Officer Shah Jahan Mirza, said the AEDB aimed to increase renewable energy share to 60% with 90% of it being indigenous to reduce pressure on foreign exchange reserves.
The Board, he added, was in process of launching a large solar power project with capacity of 2400 MW with the government providing three sites to private power companies.
Solarization of diesel-based tube wells, waiving off import duty and sales tax on solar technology, and introducing single line tariffs for competitive bidding to increase renewable energy generation were under government’s consideration, he added.
Naz Khan, Chief Strategic Officer of K-Electric, said 50% increase in electricity price was due to fuel mix dominated by thermal energy and import intensive generation which was much higher than much of the world.
She said 257GW renewable energy was added globally in 2021 and $55 billion was projected for 2022 as saving due to that addition, and Pakistan could increase its foreign exchange reserve status by exploiting it.
She said K-Electric had planned to add 1200MW in next 7-8 years from renewable energy though equity with the private sector and invest its own finances which would save foreign exchange of $ 8-10 billion.
In June 2022, 637MW generated and 519 MW had been commissioned on net metering of domestic consumers, she said and suggested incentivizing through cost-reflective tariffs, competitive bidding, to attract investment especially green financing through products and scaling up net metering of solar households.
Yusuf Siddiqui of Engro Energy Pvt. Ltd said his company had planned to add 500MW renewable energy through Jhimpir power project by 2024 which would be scaled upto 1GW.
He advocated liberalization of the power sector and said the private power companies should be allowed to work outside government’s ambit, take responsibility of risks and sell power directly to consumers.
It was a successful and cost-effective international model, which could potentially bridge investment and power demand, he added.
Ehsan Malik of Pakistan Business Council (PBC) highlighted that the PBC adopted ‘Made in Pakistan’ policy to address high import crisis. Low tariffs on fossil fuel-based energy would slow transition to renewables, especially solarization by domestic consumers, he added.
He suggested that the government must reform energy policies and improve distributions system, address issues on transmission losses and rumors on net metering of domestic consumers and run awareness campaigns through media platforms.
Explaining Pakistan’s renewable energy generation potential, SDPI’s Research Fellow Dr Hina Aslam said 0.07% solar potential was enough to meet Pakistan’s energy demand.
Sindh and Balochistan, she said, could produce 340GW wind and suggested recycling 30M mt municipal solid waste annually should be exploited to produce energy from waste.
She said that like rest of the world, Pakistan experienced 3.25% increase in renewable energy in 2021 and net FDI (foreign direct investment) in the power sector in 2021 was $911.7 million, with $101 billion target set by 2030. She suggested improving coordination between national-subnational entities, indigenous production to lower costs and smoothing out regulatory procedures to catalyze this transition.
Engr. Abdul Jabbar Memon of Qaim Group of Companies stressed on phasing out inefficient power plants. He suggested clubbing and revamping of NEPRA and OGRA to make smoother transition to renewable energy.