Windmill generators’ shortage hits wind power plans ...................................
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Foreign firms turning down orders for windmill generators as they are unable to meet demand from their own countries
By Tanveer Ahmed
KARACHI: The European and American windmill generator manufacturers are not booking orders from Pakistani investors due to rising consumption of these generators in their respective countries, which have brought the progress on wind energy projects in the country to a virtual halt.
“Local investors are finding it hard to import windmill generators from Europe and the United States to set up win power generation projects due to unavailability of these generators”, sources in the alternative energy sector disclosed to the Daily Times on Monday.
While the government is laying great emphasis on generation of power through alternative energy resources to meet the rising demand for energy in the country, the sources said the ground reality did not suggest that power generation through alternative resources would be possible in near future.
“A number of orders have been placed by various companies in recent times with foreign manufacturers to import these generators, but these have been sidestepped by the manufacturers on the grounds that production is insufficient to meet the demand from their own countries”, said an official of a company, which has been granted a licence by the Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB) to set up a windpower project.
The official, who did not want to be named, pointed out that prices of these generators had also gone up by 30 percent when compared with those 2-3 years back. “A windmill turbine of 1 MGW power generation capacity, which cost $130-140 million, is now costing $160-170 million”, he said.
He also revealed that signing of Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) is also a critical area for procurement of these windmill power turbines. “If we had PPA in hand, then we can move forward to purchase this machinery”, he added.
S S Haider of The National Industrial Commercial & Educational Link (NICE-Link), which has installed a windmill in the coastal area of Karachi, was critical of the way the alternative energy sector is being handled by the authorities concerned.
“We have been raising the issue of short production of windmill turbines for quite long time and have been asking the authorities to act in this regard by encouraging the local production of such turbines”, he said.
However, no attention had been paid to this issue, he said and explained that technology of these turbines was not complicated and was simple. “We had asked the government a number of times to undertake research and studies for local production of these turbines, but to no avail”, he added.
Mr Haider criticized role of the AEDB for not foreseeing such a situation and said that officials of the AEDB were busy in visiting various countries, but were doing nothing to promote research and studies for production of these turbines in the country.
Pakistan is blessed with abundant wind energy, which could be effectively utilized for on-grid power generation. The country has 1,046 kms long coastline, the average wind speed is more than 7m/s. Estimated wind potential of this wind corridor is more than 50,000 megawatt. The mid-term development plan of the AEDB envisages the development of wind and solar energy to meet at least 5% of the total installed capacity, that is, 9,700 megawatt by 2030.
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