Energy Deficit and Policy Options for Alternatives for Pakistan

Abstract

Pakistan is an energy deficient country. The existing infrastructure is unable to meet domestic as well as industrial demand and the gap between supply and demand is ever increasing. The increased demand of energy owing to the economic growth and attendant rise in per capita income, increasing urbanization, industrialization and rural electrification in the past few years could not be met due to poor planning and absence of far sight. World is witnessing depletion of fossil fuels. In the long term the availability of fuel in future will either be difficult or very expensive. Under the circumstances renewable and alternate energy resources give that kind of prospects and their exploitation have become all the more important. Pakistan is blessed with abundance of renewable energy resources, besides availability of billions of tons of coal. These sources of energy if harnessed can address our present as well as future energy needs. Realising its importance the Government of Pakistan has initiated various programmes to exploit energy from wind, solar, bio diesel, bio-gas etc. These programmes are at different level of maturity however, there is a long distance to cover. In this paper, an endeavour has been made to analyse the potential of available resources vis-à-vis future energy requirements of Pakistan. After having discussed the global energy situation, present energy strategy of Pakistan has been analysed in context to the future energy needs. In addition, global trends in renewable energy resources have been briefly discussed to draw pertinent lessons. Thereafter, an effort has been made to evaluate the present status of available energies with special reference to their prospects for Pakistan. Prior giving policy options and listing down a few concrete recommendations, certain functional barriers/ impediments in harnessing the available energy resources have also been highlighted.