Govt’s energy grant to be gone with the wind by 2011

The Sindh government has seven months left to put to use a 180-million dollar grant from the Korean government on alternate energy for 50 villages in Sindh.

Korean experts will help villages produce electricity with a combination of hybrid, solar and wind power. According to Adviser to the CM on Investment Zubair Motiwalla, the electricity will be 30 per cent cheaper than what people pay now. However, the work needs to done fast as the money will lapse in 2011. Motiwalla said that none of the funds had been received and they had yet to prepare a roadmap and feasibility reports. The Koreans will be sending their teams to put up the projects.

A second delegation within the year from the Korean government led by Byong Son Min met Motiwalla, the Sindh Board of Investment’s Mohammad Dagha and the president of the Pak-Korea Business Forum Ihsan Mukhtar Zubairi on Wednesday, APP reported.

The government has its work cut out. According to Bilawal Shaikh, a consultant at WindRose Consultancy, setting up a turbine is a tedious project and requires several months in preparation. “Before the turbines can be set up, several measurement masts of varying heights are installed at the location,” he explained. “These masts measure wind velocity, humidity, temperature levels, etc. for at least a year. The turbines are then set up based on the data collected from these masts.”

Earlier this year, South Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries, said that it planned to build a 50MW wind farm in Sindh this year. The wind farm would use 30 turbines, each with a capacity of 1.65MW and they would be produced at Hyundai’s plant in South Korea.

The wind farm will be 51 per cent owned by Pakistan’s Yunus Brothers, with the remaining stake held by a South Korean consortium comprising Korean Southern Power and Hyundai. Hyundai had announced plans to develop a 200MW wind farm in South Korea. It is expected to cost around $444m and will be built in partnership with Southern Power.

Most areas of Sindh remain in darkness for at least 12 hours every day, as the energy crisis in Pakistan continues. There was a dire need of alternate energy sources when a Turkish company arrived in Jhampir in 2008 with a wind power project that aimed to provide electricity to 60,000 households with five wind turbines of 1.2MW each.

Sources revealed that only one out of these five turbines is able to function now because the machines were imported from Europe and are unable to work in the hot climate of Sindh. The only turbine which works is able to generate electricity when the temperatures go down after sunset.

“The initial plan was to set up turbines up to 50MW by January 2010 but it is not clear as to why they are not going ahead,” said Khanji Harijan, who has carried out a study on centralised grid connected wind power cost. His study has shown that wind power energy, especially in Sindh, is produced at competitive rates with gas, but it is much cheaper than oil.

Despite, being practical for the population of Pakistan, wind power is not common because of numerous hindrances, such as minimal land allocation from the government and lack of resources to fund the high investments required for this set up.

“There are many stakeholders, including the city and provincial government, who may not easily allocate land for these projects,” said Harijan, admitting that foreign investors are also hesitant to invest in Pakistan given the volatile security conditions.

The Turkish firm was welcomed by the government for its initiative through the Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB). The board helped with the leasing of land from the Sindh government, developed a feasibility report, determined tariffs and acquired licences.

Published In the Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2010.