Cover Stories - Power of solar energy to empower Pakistan.

• Author: Aijaz, Urooj

Byline: Ms. Urooj Aijaz and Ms. Madiha Kamal

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan which became an independent state in 1947 is governed by a federal parliamentary constitution. It is globally the sixth most populous country with a population of approximately 200 million people and a comparatively high population growth rate of 1.5%. Pakistan is a semi-industrialized economy with a presentable textile, food processing and agriculture base and a per capita GDP of US dollar 1,561.

According to the World Bank, Pakistan has important strategic endowments and development potentials having 10th largest global labor market with ranking on 67 amongst the global exporters blessed with favorable climatic conditions, has 6th world largest coal reserves, long established nuclear powers programs and witnesses four types of weather and despite the fact that Pakistan has abundant coal reserves, it is producing just 0.1% of its electricity from its coal resources therefore, Pakistan imports crude oil, which satisfies about one-third of its total oil demand.

The higher oil prices and the shortage of funds adversely affected the quantity demand of Pakistan for importing oil and as a result there is a huge gap between the supply and demand of energy, which has flared with the passage of time, and the country has limited sources for producing electricity from reliable sources, including solar, natural gas, wind energy, hydropower and nuclear power as a result urban regions in the country are facing abundant load-shedding while the rural regions face even greater load-shedding which adversely affect industries so, it is quite unfortunate that despite having numerous energy resources, the country is engulfed in a never-ending and ever threatening energy crisis since early 2000s, which is severely hindering the growth potential of country and the bankrupt electricity portfolio suggests that the trend of electricity shortage will continue for next quite a few years.

Policymakers should therefore be fully aware of future electricity use so that appropriate measures can be taken to bridge this gap by identifying the energy status and potential of renewable energy as a sustainable alternative as energy is basic need of modern life.

Pakistan is an energy deficient country and energy crisis is making bad impacts and destroying the economy of Pakistan, facing threatening and devastating shortage of electricity due to which all sectors of economy are being adversely affected...