Syed Akhtar Ali

Energy is a basic necessity of life required both by rural and urban populace. Overall, two-third of Pakistan’s population has access to electricity and 20% have access to gas. Eighty percent of those not having electricity live in rural areas. In today’s world, almost nothing can be done without electricity. It means that one-third of our people are destined to live a primitive and difficult life, if we do not do anything for them on fast track basis, contrary to a slow programme that we have been implementing bringing grid electricity to them. Renewable Energy and in particular solar energy offers a good possibility to undertake rural electrification. It should not be difficult to electrify all the unelectrified households in a matter of a decade in the solar age or times that we are passing through as we shall see in this two-part article.

Some 30,000 villages are yet to be electrified out of a total of 125,000 villages. This means a population of 30 million remains without electricity in rural areas. Thus, a total of 4.6 million households are to be provided electricity in rural areas. Although villages are electrified every year by Discos in their geographical domain by extending their network which draws electricity from centralized generation, there is no dedicated rural electrification programme as such on the lines of distributed local generation being implemented elsewhere in may part of the world ;provincial governments have been financing solar energy schemes for rural areas. An inception study has been done recently by UNDP to encourage GoP to implement Electricity for All programme. It is hoped that GOP would be able to launch a unified and dedicated programme to achieve 100 percent access to electricity to all the citizens.

Earlier, rural electrification efforts have been entirely based on electrical grid. As new generation facilities were installed and transmission and distribution network expanded mainly for urban areas, nearby villages also benefited. Due to low load intensity and excessive costs, grid-based electricity could not be provided to distant and small villages.

Grid cannot go everywhere except to villages closer to urban centres and localised fossil-based solutions are almost infeasible and awfully expensive. Diesel-based electricity, for example, costs Rs 20 per unit or so, which is not at all affordable by the poor rural populace.

Renewable Energy is the only possible solution which does not require fuel which apart from cost cannot be transported to all places. Renewable Energy Technology has evolved tremendously; solar, wind, micro-hydro and bio-mass, out of which solar PV is the leader. Solar PV cost has come down tremendously. Solar’s modularity and scalability is of particular significance; it can start from one panel of 200 Watts to millions of panels going to 600 MW. Wind power is also available at 1 kW or lower scale. However, the dreams and visions of complete rural electrification and access for all have not been fulfilled, not only in Pakistan but elsewhere in poorer developing countries. Although, technology and costs have become feasible only recently and the impact will come eventually. There are some issues that have prevented a fast track development in this respect.

Solar is available only during daytime and requires expensive storage; wind power and micro-hydro are not available everywhere. Wind is restricted to Sindh and Balochistan. Micro-hydel is restricted to KPK and bio-mass to good agricultural areas. Also while sun does not shine after sunset, all other renewable energy sources like wind and Hydro are seasonal; hydro is not available in winters and Wind is available in summers. Solutions can however be devised to meet the peculiarities of the demand, its location and its resource endowment. For example, Solar and wind can be hybridised in Sindh and Balochistan; solar and micro-hydel can be hybridised in KPK; and solar and biomass can be hybridised in Punjab.

Renewable energy solutions

Before going into the possible solutions package, let us do some analysis of the energy needs and its characteristics, such as end-use etc.

Following end-users are identified:

A. Individual

* Household needs

* Lighting, fans, mobiles and TV

B. Community needs

* Cooking, heating and water heating

* Corn-milling

* Irrigation and water pumping

* Social facilities, e.g., schools and health facilities

The following are possible solutions that can be implemented depending on individual situations. There are three main types of rural electrification solutions; Type I, is small and low level of technology solution, providing a minimal amount of electricity for limited uses like solar lanterns, mobile charging, etc.; Type I may also run on DC system of 24-72 volts and a single wire connecting a small cluster of homes and can provide charging services at a low cost avoiding inverter costs at both ends.

Type II provides 24/7 electricity supply of adequate quality and in sufficient quantity. For Type II, hybrid solutions would be required along with a micro or mini grid for which Renewable Energy centres could be more feasible. Energy Centres can benefit from hybrid solutions and can be installed at a suitable location on a government owned location or around it. Energy Centre could provide all social needs as identified in the above. Such centres can also charge Solar Lanterns and batteries possessed by individual households. Retailing operation can be sublet to private sector. Depending on the population, 5-25 kW facilities can be possibly installed under this system.

Type-III is rooftop solar; although individuals can install their own facilities on their own finances, it is not very feasible, because it is still quite a technical issue and market availability of solutions has many issues. Rooftop solar can be installed by Discos under their general framework of distribution of electricity and giving individual connections. Only mode and style would change. Solar PV system would be owned by Discos and it would charge its standard or special tariff in the form of a monthly bill of a fixed amount. Small one or two panel users may get some subsidy and be charged at, say. 5-6 Rs per unit and landowners could be charged at Rs 10 or more per unit (excluding storage), assuming a solar PV basic cost of 6 Rs per unit.

Bangladesh success

Bangladesh has had quite some success under this model wherein SHS (Solar Home System) had been launched. Under this SHS of various capacities 20 W-70 W have been installed on roof tops under lease financing wherein SHS are supplied at 10% upfront payment and the rest in 36 instalments. With falling solar PV prices, either system size may be increased or payments would become easier. The programme has been managed by a special purpose organisation IDCOL (Infrastructural Development Company Limited) under initial World Bank technical and financial assistance which has now been joined by a dozen international organisations.

Economics and finance

In Pakistan under a similar programme, a 250W solar system with deep cycle battery, etc., should cost Rs 40,000. Under 5-6% interest rate and five years payment, a monthly instalment of Rs 870 may have to be paid. For a repayment period of ten years, it might be more affordable at Rs 500 per month. Under a Disco plan, of 25 years, it may be as low as 250 Rs per month. This would mean a unit cost of electricity of Rs 5.0 per unit. If Rs 250 per month of cross subsidy for 50 kWh consumers is deducted, ironically, no due would be required. For larger consumers, however, say of 300 kWh per month, such subsidy would not be applicable.

Under the solar programme, 4.6 million systems may have to be installed, say, in a decade, which means an installation rate of 400,000 systems per year or 35,000 systems per month. It should not be very difficult. As Bangladesh has already installed a comparable number of 4.1 million. Bangladesh installation rate has been 70,000 units per month which they want to bring to a rate of 400,000 units per month to meet their target of 2020.Pakistan, under the proposed programme, may be able to achieve Electricity for All objective by 2029 or even earlier, if the programme begins in 2019.

(To be continued)

(The writer is former member energy of Planning Commission)

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Table : Estimated Electrification Requirements and Programme Size


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Pakistan Population                    million                200


Villages                                                   125000


Electrified Villages                                        95000


Unelectrified Villages                                      30000


Average Village Population                                   1000


Avg Household size                                            6.5


No of houses unelectrified                              4,615,385


unit cost per KW                         USD                 1500


Household Solar capacity                                      250


Solar Capacity for 250 W per             KW             1,153,846


Solar Capacity for 500 Wp per            kW             2,307,692


Total Programme Cost-one panel USD                  1,730,769,231


Total Programme Cost-2 panels            USD        3,461,538,462


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Table : Economics of one or two Solar panels per household


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                                                System   Capacity


                                                             (Wp)


                                                   250        500


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unit cost per watt                      USD        1.5        1.5


System Cost                             USD        375        750


Interest Rate                       % per year       6          6


System Life or Financing period         yrs         25         25


Monthly Lease                           USD       2.17       4.34


Monthly generation                      kWh      41.25       82.5


unit Electricity cost                   Usc      5.787      5.787


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