Pakistan’s Ministry for Water and Power said that the current government has restructured the Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB) and set new targets for AEDB. AEDB was restructured on account of the fact that during the past five years it failed to deliver any results. As per the ministry, the government wants that the country should produce 7000 megawatt (MW) electricity from alternate energy sources in coming couple of years.
The Minister for Water and Power, Raja Parvez Ashraf said that in coming few weeks a Turkish firm would install five windmills in Jam Peer locality near Karachi. The total quantity of electricity generated through renewable energy sources during 2007-08 was 35.240 MW, he added.
Ashraf pointed out that several proposals are being considered to use renewable energy sources for electrification in the urban areas which include solar street lighting, solar lighting for billboards and micro wind turbines. He informed that the private sector has already installed few micro wind turbines on billboards in Karachi for lighting purposes.
Responding to a question during question-answer session, the minister said that PKR20,000 were allocated in PSDP 2007-08 for raising of Mangla Dam out of which PKR18,000 had been released by WAPDA during the financial year 2007-08 and progress up to December 31,2008 was 78% against scheduled 88%.