The Sindh government has planned to set up solar-wind hybrid generation plants of 350MW to produce electricity at the proposed tariff of Rs18.45 per unit.

The per-unit cost of electricity would be reduced with the expansion of the generation capacity of hybrid power plants, Mehfooz Qazi, Director of the Alternative Energy Development Board, told WealthPK.

He said the project would produce 766GW of clean energy annually. The government will conduct third-party studies and validation to firm up the hybrid clean power generation plan that will massively benefit the industries.

The transmission and distribution systems of the Sindh Transmission & Dispatch Company (STDC) would be fully utilized to supply the clean electricity produced by the hybrid wind-solar projects to the industrial consumers under the B2B arrangements.

The government is also working hard to ensure early implementation of a new provincial budget plan to provide 500,000 solar panels to off-grid homes in faraway areas.

“The provincial government has made the utmost resolve to energize 2.6 million off-grid homes at the earliest by using the massive renewable power production potential of the province,” Qazi said, hoping that the federal government will fully assist Sindh in implementing these energy plans.

Apart from these projects, various initiatives are underway to promote renewable energy in the province. These initiatives are part of the Sindh Solar Energy Project, which aims to increase solar power generation and access to electricity.

The project has four components. Utility-Scale Solar, the first component, aims to identify and develop a series of publicly-owned solar parks and support the competitive selection of private sector developers, through auction, for construction of solar power plants in the solar parks.

Distributed Solar, the second component, aims to procure and install solar PV systems and associated energy management systems on rooftops and other available space on and around public sector buildings.

Solar Home Systems, the third component, aims to deploy affordable SHSs in prioritized areas with low or no access to electricity, analyze and identify priority areas, enhance consumer awareness and financial literacy, and ensure product certification and quality control besides monitoring and evaluation activities.

Capacity building and technical assistance, the fourth component, aims to support the design and implementation of the project and comply with fiduciary, gender, M&E, procurement, and Sindh safeguards requirements.

Sindh is endowed with the alternative/renewable energy (ARE) potential. It has identified an economically viable wind energy potential of 55,000MW in Thatta and Jamshoro districts, (60km away from Karachi) with an excellent wind speed of 6-8m/sec that’s best suitable for power generation.

Umerkot and Tharparkar districts are also potential sites linked to the same corridor for exploring wind energy potential. Sindh has a large viable resource of about 1000GW solar energy suitable for both photovoltaic and thermal, i.e. concentrated solar power (CSP) applications.