Experts discuss ways to de-carbonize power sector

Islamabad: Renewable energy experts in a webinar organized jointly by Agora Energiewende, Germany and Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) discussed the ‘2030 solar and wind roadmap for Pakistan’ chalked out by National Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) under its Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan (IGCEP) 2022-31.

CEO of the Alternative Energy Development Board Shah Jahan Mirza reiterated the government’s commitment towards lessening reliance on fossil fuels and de-carbonization of the power sector by ambitious targets of renewable energy uptake as outlined in the Alternative and Renewable Policy 2019, which he said is meant to boost the renewable energy share to 30 per cent by 2030.

He said the government was motivated to make the necessary transit to renewable energy sources on a war-footing basis. "Many mega-scale and distributed generation projects based on solar PV are in the pipeline and AEDB was committed to their timely execution," he said.

Sharing the government’s vision to uptake the renewable energy share, Ali Zain Banatwala, deputy managing director, National Transmission & Despatch Company (NTDC), highlighted that the renewable energy integration with the grid may cause some issues with the system operations of the grid due to the intermittent nature. However, he said, NTDC is playing its role by carrying out a detailed analysis of the scenarios of renewable energy uptake mandating the collective efforts of de-carbonization of power sector at the earliest. The RE experts discussed the results of an ambitious solar and wind roadmap performed by ‘8.2 Renewable Energy Experts’ and ‘Power Planners International’ offering recommendations for accelerating the development of wind and solar power beyond the governmental target adopted in the IGCEP.

The study titled “Beyond IGCEP 2022” reviews the 10-year generation expansion planning for Pakistan and analyses if a more ambitious pursuit of solar and wind power (“VRE”) by 2030/31 would be possible and beneficial. Based on the hourly dispatch of the year 2030, it comes to the conclusion that an increase of the planned total VRE capacity from 20 GW to 33 GW by 2030 would be possible by adding minor grid infrastructure reinforcements. Furthermore, this would reduce energy generation total emissions by 50 per cent and the average energy generation costs by 15 per cent.