Pak: Turkish firm to set up wind energy project

Karachi: Even though it has its reservations over the tariff approved by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra), a Turkish firm is reported to have started shipping equipment to Pakistan for setting up the country’s first wind energy project.

According to sources in the know of things, some of the equipment has already reached Karachi and the rest is expected to arrive in the next couple of weeks. To be put up near Jhimpir, the five units of 1.2MW each, which are only 12 per cent of the actual (50MW) project, will hopefully get functional by early August.

Zorlu is said to be one of the eight entities that had received the generation license from among the 21 potential investors who were given land allocations by the Alternative Energy development Board (AEDB) so that they could prepare feasibility studies regarding their projects. None of the investors, however, could agree to the Nepra tariff of 10.49 cents per kilowatt in addition to a raise of 1 to 1.5 cents on carbon credit account.

The Turkish firm is the only one that has re-applied so far, while two other companies, Green Power and Win Power, are in the process of filing revised applications.

Requesting anonymity, the sources said that the Turkish firm has been given a tacit understanding by the AEDB that it would somehow make Nepra see the light of reason and take a long-term view of the country’s crunching need to build alternative energy resources to offset the soaring cost of conventional energy.

The removal of AEDB CEO Shahid Hamid, which came about late on Wednesday evening through a federal government notification, may have an impact on the Zorlu deal because the change has come at a crucial time, especially for the Turkish firm which may find itself stranded.

Only a few weeks earlier, the AEDB had talked of plans to install windmills in Sindh to produce 1,200 megawatts of power. It had even talked of having acquired 34,000 acres of land for the purpose. But, insiders say, allocation of land is only the beginning of the process. Simply being a facilitator, the AEDB can only locate potential investors, convince them to take up relevant projects, and help them out in terms of technical feasibility.

The real action starts when it comes to the financial feasibility. A narrow, short-sighted vision on the part of the regulatory authorities is generally blamed for having killed many an option. Citing wind energy negotiations as a yardstick, the sources say that the time taken by the regulators in negotiation with the entrepreneurs has only allowed the prices of wind turbines to go up and their delivery times extended by up to three years.

Nepra offices in Islamabad were approached more than once, both through telephone and email, for their side of the story, but all messages left for Director Tariff Syed Insaf Ahmed remained unanswered.