The Senate Standing Committee on Planning, Development and Reforms met at the Parliament house with Senator Agha Shahzaib Durrani in the chair. The committee was told that the renewable energy projects to be completed in near future include 19 projects of a total of 531MW electricity, 22 projects of a total of 1199.3MW and 104 projects of over 6,000 MW.
All these projects will generate electricity through renewable energy sources like wind and solar energy. Currently there are 24 wind projects operational in Pakistan, located in Thatha and Gharo areas of Sindh. Pakistan is working to find more potential wind corridors. Some areas in Balochistan have a very high potential of wind power generation but they are not connected to the grid.
15 more projects are under development and there are also projects for Balochistan as surveys have been conducted in the last three years. As many as 6 solar power projects and 8 biomass projects are also functional at present.
The members of the committee observed that renewable energy resources have become common in other countries and Pakistan is lagging behind in having an efficient energy mix which should have had 25% share of renewable energy by now.
