US experts to help Pakistan modernise power grid system

ISLAMABAD: Praising Pakistan’s focused efforts to surmount its energy shortage, US Assistant Secretary for International Affairs Department of Energy Jonathan Elkind on Monday said American experts would help use energy more efficiently by modernising Pakistan’s electric grid system.

Briefing a group of reporters at the embassy, Elkind, who along with energy experts was in the federal capital to talk to their Pakistani counterparts, said the United States would be helping Pakistan under a $3 million project which was meant to build its capacity in efficient use of energy.

“A well-functioning energy sector is the very bedrock on which the rest of the economy in any country is based.”Replying to a question, he said the US energy experts would assist Pakistan to attract both domestic and international investors as well. “We hope to work very closely with Pakistani counterparts to help Pakistan resolve the remaining issues in the energy sector.”

An efficient use of energy, he said, would help Pakistani companies produce cheaper goods. “The engagements that we are doing there is an ambitious target also for the US-Pakistan energy partnership.

“Investors are looking for predictability in their treatment in a regulatory choice structure under which they would operate.“And we think that there is very very good reason to be optimistic about those investments if one looked at the kind of changes and improvements made by the government in a last couple of years.”

To a question on the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, Jonathan said international sanctions imposed on Iran had been lifted which was a positive step and that certainly had made the conditions favourable for importing natural gas from Tehran. However, he said, there were still certain sanctions which were in place against Iran in terms of using the US legal and financial system.

He refused to further comment on the issue when questioned whether it would invoke the US sanctions if Pakistan and Iran went ahead with the multi-billion dollar gas pipeline.

Jonathan said the prices of many clean energy technologies had come down drastically as a consequence of research and their broad application. He stressed the need on having a diversified mix fuel strategy and having a back-up generating system to keep the wheel of the economy running.

When asked about Pakistan making a choice for using its coal reserves to generate energy, he said even the US was using it for production of energy. However, over the years coal’s share of US energy mix had decreased significantly due to availability of inexpensive domestic natural gas and its negative environmental impact.Making choices for its energy mix was the prerogative of Islamabad, he added.