South Asia Investor Review

Nearly 4,000 new net metering licenses have been issued in Pakistan in the July-September quarter, up from 2,000 in the same quarter last year. Vast majority of these are for solar photo-voltaic installation. Net metering solar installations are in addition to the rapidly growing  off-grid solar  panels across Pakistan. Higher electric utility (DISCO) bills and lower cost of solar panels appear to be driving the adoption of solar in Pakistan. Net metering allows users with private renewable energy production plants to connect to the electric grid and sell excess power to the local electric utility or DISCOs such as K-Electric, LESCO or IESCO in Pakistan.    Net Metering Installations in Pakistan. Source: Jeremy Higgs This year has seen the fastest growth in net energy metering (NEM) growth since Pakistan launched its first  NEM policy in 2015 , according to data shared by Jeremy Higgs, director of operations for Islamabad-based  EcoEnergy .  Total...

Pakistan’s National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has published for public comments its revised feed-in tariffs (FiTs) for solar energy projects of up to 100 MW, according to a report in P V-Tech journal . Source: PV-Tech The proposed FiTs are slightly lower in Balochistan, Sindh and Southern Punjab region than in Khyber Pakhtun Khwa (KPK) and the rest of Punjab. The proposal for years 1 through 13 includes Rs. 11.128 (US$0.105) per unit for southern region and Rs. 11.783 (US$0.111) per unit for northern region. The rates drop to Rs. 5.588 (US$0.053) and Rs. 5.917 (US$0.056) per unit for northern and southern regions respectively for years 14-25.  The average for the next 25 years works out to Rs. 9.924 (US$0.094) and Rs. 10.507 (US$0.099) per unit for the two regions. Pakistan Solar Map   Multi-year mean (2000-2012) of daily Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI) for Pakistan in kWh/m2 [Note: preliminary, unvalidated results] Source:  World Bank La...

“I use the solar light for cooking at night. We save money because we had to buy candles and kerosene before. We also use it to charge our mobile phones.” Marvi, Yousaf Babar Village in Sindh, Pakistan About 250 schools and 12,000 homes in Pakistani villages have so far been lit by solar lights. The program is funded by the UK's Department for International Development (DfID) to help flood-affected people in  rural Sindh and Punjab . Plan International Pakistan and the Punjab education department have rebuilt 400 schools destroyed by floods, and implemented solar panels in 250 schools that did not have electricity. In addition to the solar panel installation, the DfID funded project also provided water and sanitation, school furniture, school paper, schoolbags and uniforms, sports equipment and health education for 54,000 primary school children. The solar lights cost about $15 each and give sustainable, free light for up to 10 hours after each charge, and can last for up ...

Pakistan is set to raise feed-in tariffs (FITs) requiring electric supply companies to purchase electricity that guarantee up to 18% return to private producers of wind and solar power . This latest effort is to improve incentives over an earlier 2006 policy for individual consumers installing solar panels in their homes and for larger investors. Ms. Rukhsana Zuberi, a fellow NEDUET alumnus and PPP senator, is pushing the required legislation through Pakistan's parliament for the new FIT policy. In addition to her legislative efforts, Zuberi is also taking the lead in installing solar panels in several public buildings across the country . Some of high-profile locations where solar panels have so far been installed include the tombs of Pakistan's founder Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah and PPP leader Benazir Bhutto, University of Engineering Technology in Lahore, Abdullah Shah Ghazi's shrine, St. Patrick's Cathedral and Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Karachi, Prime Minister...

Reliable 24X7 availability of electricity is taken for granted in most of the developed world. Whenever consumers plug their favorite gadgets into the wall socket, it is assumed that the power will be there. Everyone has access to it. Electrical power outages are extremely rare. Electricity empowers consumers by enhancing their lives through better learning and entertainment, higher productivity and income, greater comfort, increased safety, superior health, and improved economy. People in the developed world live with the benefits of electricity everyday. While most people give little thought to where electricity comes from, there are many different ways to generate electricity - including coal, oil, gas, hydroelectric , nuclear, wind and solar . It is delivered to individual homes by extensive national grid systems. In most of the developing nations, however, the availability of electricity to majority of the population is either unreliable or non-existent. The lack of such an esse...

Sunny California is leading the way to tap solar energy. Can sunny Pakistan follow to deal with its crippling energy crisis? California based BrightSource Energy , which already has a deal to build a series of huge solar power plants in the Mojave Desert for Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), announced an even larger project recently with Southern California Edison. Brightsource, with its roots in Israel, launched its first big solar project last year in the Negev desert. The World Economic Forum voted BrightSource as a 2009 Technology Pioneer. It was the only solar company to win this year's award, and is recognized for helping industrial customers reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. By 2016, the two companies said, BrightSource will build a series of solar-thermal power plants that will generate 1.3 gigawatts of electricity for Southern California Edison's customers. That's enough power for 845,000 homes, said Stuart Hemphill, the utility's vice pres...

As South Asians suffer greatly from the twin crises of hyper inflation and prolonged, daily power cuts, the life for them is getting more and more difficult every day. The traditional approaches to solve these problems such as increasing governmental subsidies for food and fuel and building more conventional fossil-fuel based generating capacity are not likely to work cost-effectively and sustain ably in the long run. It is time for South Asians to explore creative options to find workable, long-lasting solutions. Economists often talk about the impact of supply and demand and consumer behavior on inflation. In fact, the consumer price index calculations in the US rely partly on consumers substituting cheaper alternatives for commodities experiencing higher inflation. For example, it is assumed that when the price of steak goes up, consumers start eating chicken instead. The often-criticized substitution process rationalizes this method to eliminate inflation from the US Bureau of Labo...