President Alvi calls for tapping solar resources

Stresses need for making renewable energy more affordable, reliable

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is an emerging renewable energy market with immense potential to grow exponentially in the years to come, said President Dr Arif Alvi.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the Pakistan Renewable Energy Summit 2019 on Thursday, the president called for establishing a new mechanism in the country’s renewable energy sector, particularly through the adoption of solar resources to meet growing needs of the nation.

The summit, hosted by the World Wind Energy Association and Global 100% RE, gathered national and international experts on energy, who discussed topics including global energy transition, decarbonising industry’s power needs and achieving 30% renewable energy by 2030.

Alvi emphasised the need for making renewable energy more affordable, reliable and easier to transmit by integrating the industry’s broadest portfolios of renewable technologies.

He stressed that by 2025, renewable resources would have the potential to generate 25% of the country’s energy requirement.

“In the past, the invention of steam engine, which used coal as an energy source, brought a change in human lives,” he said. “Today, different kinds of energy are required which do not deplete natural resources.”

He regretted that consumerism was a trend of mankind, which focused on producing and wasting more than needed. “With regard to energy, whatever we do today will shape the future of the world,” he said.

The president stressed the need for exploring cleaner, more efficient and economically viable sources of power generation including wind, hydel and solar energy to meet future needs of the nation.

He was of the view that there must be a fair balance in utilising the energy resources, adding that Pakistan was moving towards harnessing the colossal renewable energy potential to supplement its initiatives to increase the share of renewable power in the energy mix to at least 30% of the installed capacity by 2030.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th, 2019.

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