Solar Powered Products in Pakistan

[Torpedo]

How popular are they? Given the energy shortage I thought they would have taken off. I am talking about solar powered lights, fans, air conditioners etc etc

Is there a market for them?

 

[EngrOmair]

Definitely there is a Developing market in Pakistan regards to Solar Operated products with the government exempting the Sales taxes on Solar Panel the prices have also lowered. Unfortunately local manufacturers are yet to develop skills to produce international standard solar panels for the domestic market.

I believe it is a very vast market & is yet to be utilized to the fullest , according to a report i read yearly import of more than 500MW solar panels per year and local production capacity is only 10 MW per year. So this is the very reason we don't have Pakistani People using this technology as all the imports are from Traders.

Companies have come up with DC A/C which costs around 50K PKR, Which is reasonable looking at the prices for Panels,Controller....

In fact Spain is a country were people had PV Systems installed in their premises and those who were generating excess electricity used to sell it off to the Government Grid, until last year where they introduced minimal Tax known as sun tax.

Government needs to take initiative to educate people to inform our public about the technology 80% of our population don't even know something like this exists.

There is a law in Dubai now where any commercial construction starts it needs to be having a Solar Water Heating System to save electricity. I had the opportunity to design one of the mega project which are suppose to have chillers ranging up to 3000 Refrigerant Ton independently running on Solar energy and the Proposal was from a very well known Chinese Manufacturer. People are moving ahead and taking the Go Green Initiative pretty seriously, Not only it saves the environment it also saves the running cost.


What we need to do is :

1. Setup Manufacturing facilities which are up-to the International Standards.
2. Instead of running Generators polluting the environment In case of load shedding Install PV systems in all Hospitals, Schools, Administrative Buildings.
3. Run Awareness campaigns
4. Set up Solar Parks
5. Build societies which only operate on Solar Energy ( Masdar City - Abu Dhabi)

 

[DW44]

Not very popular at the moment but popularity is rising rapidly and the pace has picked up in the last 3-4 years. It's not uncommon to drive past several houses in a given street with their roofs covered in solar panels and the government also seems to be warming up to the idea, with focus on solar growing, a wise move considering the high levels of solar irradiance in most of Pakistan. A lot of this has to do with the low costs (roughly $1.5-2 million per megawatt of installed nameplate capacity) though the power produced is intermittent and inconsistent. On a given day, a 100 MW solar installation could produce anywhere from 0 to 60 MW at different times and on a rainy day it might produce negligible power, an issue for places like Islamabad, Peshawar and other northern cities, so a country with limited financial resources can't afford to invest too heavily in solar at the expense of more reliable fossil fuel based power.

The one issue I have, and this is more of a personal issue due to my economic beliefs, is that almost all the equipment is imported. A country like Pakistan can surely leverage it's size and innate advantages for producing solar power to coerce manufacturers to set up shop here and share at least some technology with local players to get them off the ground.

 

[Syed1]

Pakistan should designate vast tracks of land in the Cholistan and Thar deserts as solar power parks and allow private investors to set up solar plants.

Our country is blessed with 250+ days of sun in a year which would help us in meeting most of our energy requirements, the rest can be made up of hydro, thermal and wind. However, solar power is very intermittent and you need to back it up through other sources because during cloudy/rainy days you won't be able to produce optimum level of power.

A law should be passed that any new commercial/residential building shall have solar panels installed on the roof to meet a certain percentage of the building's energy consumption to get a tax break.