Pakistan pushes renewables, but ...

Tarbela Dam, Pakistan

 From Reuters.

Pakistan this week set in motion a plan to boost the share of its electric power that comes from renewables to 30% by 2030, up from about 4% today, government officials said.

“The targets in the newly announced policy are a 20% share of renewables in installed capacity of Pakistan’s power mix by 2025 and 30% by 2030,” said Syed Aqeel Hussain Jafry, policy director for the government’s Alternative Energy Development Board.

That will include mainly wind and solar power, but also geothermal, tidal, wave and biomass energy, he said.

With boosts in hydropower capacity expected as well, the shift could bring the share of clean energy in Pakistan’s electricity mix to 65% by 2030, said Nadeem Babar, head of a task force on energy reforms in Pakistan.

But the legislation leaves in place plans to build seven more coal-fired power plants as part of the second phase of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor project - something that could impede scale-up of renewable power, warned Zeeshan Ashfaq, a solar and wind energy developer in Pakistan.

“A coal pipeline of around 4,000-5,000 megawatts will not provide much space for renewables,” said Ashfaq, managing director of SOWITEC (Solar Wind Technology) Pakistan.

New investment in renewable energy is expected to come from private investors, with potential suppliers bidding in annual auctions and low-tariff proposals winning, said Babar, chair of the energy task force and now special assistant to the prime minister.

Jafry, of the alternative energy board, said the policy represented a significant shift from the past, when investors approached the government with individual projects.

One big potential roadblock to scaling renewables is the focus of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project on building new coal-fired power plants, Ashfaq said.

“Nearly 70% of generation capacity of CPEC power projects is coal fired. With CPEC coal-power projects, coal-fired generation capacity will increase from 3% in 2017 to 20% in 2025,” he said.

Achieving the country’s renewable energy aims will require rethinking those plans, he said.

But Babar said “pre-authorized fossil fuel projects under CPEC will continue execution - they will go into construction”.

That suggests Pakistan will continue with plans to build all seven new CPEC coal-fired power plants by 2024.

China has recently strongly objected to Pakistan's attempt to cancel some of the planned coal power stations.  This is unfortunate, to say the least, given that to meet even the 2 degree target of the Paris Agreement, no new coal power stations should be built anywhere.  

China should stop funding coal power stations in the rest of the world, not just because of the climate impact but also because these new power stations will certainly become stranded assets.  

The good news is that a system of reverse auctions will rapidly demonstrate just how much cheaper than coal wind and solar are, and will make the construction of new coal power stations much more awkward.  

Pakistan can easily integrate wind and solar into her grid because of the high percentage of electricity coming from hydro.