Pak to get renewable energy project in NAC

Faisalabad: The Aga Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP) in co-operation with the World Bank (WB) is implementing a Community-Based Renewable Energy Development Project in Northern Areas and Chitral (NAC). Various sources for the funds towards this project include Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) will provide $7.028 million while Public sources of funding will be $1.583 million.

Private Sector will provide $1.980 million as its share and Commercial Loan was $2.688 million. Community Investment of the project will be $3.320 million. The AKRSP is a community development organisation that has been working in northern Pakistan over the last 20 years to act as a catalyst for integrated rural development, including institutional development, resource development, and market development.

It has successfully completed 240 micro-hydel schemes in six districts of northern Pakistan including several larger mini-hydel plants operated and maintained by local communities. The AKRSP will manage all aspects of project implementation with technical backstopping support provided by the Northern Areas Public Works Department (NAPWD) in Gilgit and CWD in Chitral.

Its engineering Subsidiary Mountain Infrastructure and Engineering Services will implement the technical aspects of the proposed project with support from AKRSP's Market Development and Institutional Development divisions.

Nearly half of the project funding will be provided from the Community Physical Infrastructure Unit of the PPAF, an autonomous fund set up by the Government of Pakistan to invest in community-based infrastructure projects and micro-credit for enterprises that reduce poverty.

The PPAF works with intermediary partner organisations, one of which is the AKRSP, for effective outreach to tens of thousands of community organisations. The Pakistan Centre for Renewable Energy Technologies (PCRET) has been recently established by merging the National Institute of Silicon Technology (NIST) and the Pakistan Council for Appropriate Technologies (PCAT). PCRET will provide capital items such as turbines and generators for 15 units in the project.

The WB update project report revealed that the federally administered NAC district of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan are located at the intersection of four of the world's highest mountain ranges and are one of the remotest and isolated regions in Pakistan.

They contain over one million people living in 850 villages with high incidences of poverty and lack of access to basic services. In 1998, only 46.7 percent of the households in Gilgit, Baltistan, Ghizer, Ghanche, Diamir (Northern Areas) and Chitral had access to electricity and this figure has remained relatively stable in the recent years.

Chitral town is the only area connected to the national grid however supply is intermittent with frequent power outages and poor power quality. Although, the NAPWD plans to add 160 MW to the current supply gird by 2009, this will be insufficient to meet projected future local levels of demand.

A majority of the villages in the NAC are either supplied by stand-alone small electric power grids or do not have access to electric power at all. Most of the stand-alone generation is provided by diesel generator sets close to urban centres that often operate at suboptimal levels.

There is little published information available on generation capacity, actual installed generation, transmission, or distribution infrastructure, number of consumers by categories, total/annual consumption, and/or prices for this type of electricity provision.

The NAC offers tremendous potential to generate electricity from renewable, although a systematic assessment of economically viable resources has yet to be undertaken for specific technology applications such as hydropower.

By some estimates, over 40,000 MW of hydropower potential exists nation wide mostly in the northern parts of the country but also includ