No End to load shedding till 2018, according to NEPRA. Best time to invest in Solar and Renewable Energy

ISLAMABAD: Load-shedding in the country will not end till 2017, a Nepra report reveals raising doubts about claims of the Nawaz administration that there will be no power outages by end of that year.

The 2013 report also disclosed that the country would not get rid of power outages even in 2018.The report says that the country will face electricity deficit of 3905 MW in 2017 and 1831 MW. The report claims that in 2017, the electricity production will stands at 21,616 MW whereas the demand will hover at 25521 MW and in 2018, the electricity generation will increase to 24924 MW while the demand of electricity in the country will stand at 26755 MW.

All the said data has been acquired from official document, says Nepra’s report.

“The whopping raise in tariff has led to the increase in electricity theft and less recovery of electricity bills,” the report also reveals. The domestic tariff in the country has swelled to the domestic tariff of the developed countries despite the fact the per capita income is too low if compared with the per capita income of the masses of the developed world.

The report has declared Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) as the main stumbling bloc in the way of power sector reforms and its restructuring.Nepra also highlighted in the report the wrong decisions in the power sector saying that giving the powers to CPPA (Central Power Purchase Agency) for purchasing the electricity from Gencos, IPPs, nuclear power plants and captive power plants is tantamount to the negation of competitive regime.

(The news)

In broader perspective to analyze this report, it is one of the best time to invest in the solar  and other Renewable Energy in Pakistan especially in the commercial and industrial sectors because of the unit price of electricity, load shedding and quick payback.

Global warming which melts the western coast of Greenland

The last edge of the Greenland ice sheet that had resisted global warming has now become unstable, adding billions of tonnes of meltwater to rising seas, scientists said on Sunday.

In a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, they said a surge in temperature from 2003 had eased the brakes on a long "river" of ice that flows to the coast in northeastern Greenland.

Known as an ice stream, the "river" takes ice from a vast basin and slowly shifts it to the sea -- in the same way that the Amazon River drains water.

In the past, the flow from this ice stream had been constrained by massive buildups of ice debris choking its mouth.

But a three-year spell of exceptionally high temperatures removed this blockage -- and like a cork removed from a bottle helped accelerate the flow, the study said.

The ice stream, called Zachariae, is the largest drain from an ice basin that covers a whopping 16 percent of the Greenland ice sheet.

From 2003 to 2012, northeastern Greenland disgorged 10 billion tonnes of ice annually into the ocean, the study found.

"Northeast Greenland is very cold. It used to be considered the last stable part of the Greenland ice sheet," said Michael Bevis, an Earth sciences professor at Ohio State University, who led the study.

"This study shows that ice loss in the northeast is now accelerating. So, now it seems that all the margins of the Greenland ice sheet are unstable."

Greenland is estimated to contribute 0.5mm (0.012 inches) to the 3.2 mm (0.13 inches) annual rise in global sea levels.

The main tool in the study was data from a network of 50 Global Positioning System (GPS) sensors along the Greenland coast.

The monitors use Earth's natural elasticity as a stethoscope of the ice sheet. Ice is heavy, so when it melts in massive quantities the land rebounds and the position of the sensors changes slightly.

To get a wider picture, the GPS data was then overlaid with data from three US satellites and a European one that measured ice thickness from space.

"The Greenland ice sheet has contributed more than any other ice mass to sea level rise over the last two decades and has the potential, if it were completely melted to raise global sea level by more than seven metres (22.75 feet)," said Jonathan Bamber, a professor at Britain's University of Bristol.

"About half of the increased contribution of the ice sheet is due to the speedup of glaciers in the south and northwest. Until recently, northeast Greenland has been relatively stable. This new study shows that it is no longer the case."

(By AFP)

Climate Change and water shortage in Pakistan

The ongoing global climate change will inflict multifarious damages on Pakistan and one of these could be a crippling water shortage.

This was the consensus among ecological experts at the one-day conference on climate change sponsored by the Habib University at a local hotel on Saturday.

In the panel discussion titled, “Climate change in the local context”, the panelists said that Pakistan’s two main sources of water were the glaciers and the monsoons. With global warming, glaciers were melting away more rapidly which could mean early depletion of the source, they added. Besides, they said, the monsoon pattern had become erratic. Sometimes they were delayed. On other occasions, they just did not occur, this was causing dearth of the precious commodity. Pakistan being an arid sub-tropical country, the global warming could prove disastrous. There would be droughts and as a result there would be epidemics and destruction of infrastructure. One of the panelists said that it was alarming to see sheep crossing the bed of the Mighty Indus. “Mangrove forests are dying for lack of water and mangroves are essential for the marine fish to survive.”

The panelists said that there was a dire need to urgently chalk out a strategy to conserve forests, adding, the government, the civil society, and the NGOs would have to work in concert.

Rab Nawaz, Director, World Wildlife Fund, Sindh, said, “People build their habitations on riverbeds or river banks which is really bad planning on the part of the concerned authorities”.

Irfan Ahmed, an expert on renewable energy sources, said that coal energy wouldn’t make much of a difference. What really mattered, he said, was the quantum of renewable energy. “The best thing to do would be to conserve energy.” Thar coal, he said, had large sulphur content and utilisation of this coal could cause sulphur dioxide pollution.

In his keynote address, US expert and Nobel Prize winning scientist, Dr Bruce McCarl said, “The earth is likely to have warmed up by 4 degrees centigrade by the end of the century which is real bad news for agriculture”. He laid the blame on human involvement in environmental degradation and said that in the US, 85 per cent of the pollution came from cars or coal combustion. In 2013, he said, there had been record emission of greenhouse gases and there was likely to be far less rain in sub-tropical areas like Texas (US) and Pakistan.

Under the circumstances, Pakistan will have to carry out a detailed review of its cropping pattern, McCarl said.

The next panel discussion, titled, “Climate change and the role of the media”, comprised journalists Kamal Siddiqui, Editor, Express Tribune; Rina Saeed Khan, free lance journalist; Badar Alam, editor, Herald; and former Senator Javed Jabbar. Jabbar highly lauded the journalists for highlighting the issue of climate change and environmental degradation since 1972 when the first UN moot on climate change was held. He said that the English language media were far more sensitized than the vernacular ones, adding that the latter would have to pull up their socks. However, he lamented the pollution of the media by commercialism where the media only pander to the whims of the advertisers and just debate the issues of their choice. He condemned the corporatisation of the media.

Besides, he said, it was unfortunate that there was no public broadcasting system in Pakistan, one where there were no advertisements, the government was the owner with a totally independent editorial policy. In this context, he was all praise for the BBC and recommended something along the same lines for Pakistan

Rina Saeed Khan was of the opinion that Pakistan was the least emitter country and the least contributor to global pollution.

Kamal Siddiqui said that his publication had published a whole lot of incisive stories on environmental degradation. And cited a story by an outstation correspondent who reported that people in Thatta had switched to betel nut cultivation as there was not enough water to grow rice in the area.

Badar Alam said that no system had been devised to communicate the technical findings to the common folk.

In the last panel discussion on the South Asian Context, Mohsin Iqbal, Head, Global Change Impact Studies Centre, Islamabad, said that climate change was a reality and it happened mainly on account of anthropogenic activity. He said that almost 80 per cent of the farmers had land that was degraded and because of rising temperatures, crop yields were decreasing. He said that in the South Asian context the countries shared a number of resources, namely the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges. All the countries were overpopulated, and had a low technology base, he added.

He called for policy making at the regional level despite the acrimony that marked relations among certain SAARC member countries.

Dr Heinz Gutscher, Professor Emeritus of Social Psychology, University of Zurich, with the help of slides of Switzerland, said that the conditions in Switzerland were the same as in Pakistan till about 300 years ago. But then, he said, it was earnest and selfless policies and there was realisation that no improvement could come about without education. As such undivided attention was accorded to education and the lot of the country really changed for the better, he added.

(report by Anil Datta, 26 January 2014, The News)

One of extremely vulnerable area to climate change

Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change globally and in Pakistan, which is the one of the worst hit countries of climate change, agriculture is badly affected, said climate change experts and nature conservationists on Saturday. 
Addressing a conference on climate change organised by the Habib University, experts said water availability, food security and human healthcare were most likely to be negatively affected by climate change, ie, erratic weather patterns, changing rainfall trends and extreme weather events including floods which have been plaguing the countryside for the past few years.
Experts also said that beside Pakistan, other developing countries, several of them in the Asia Pacific region, are also likely to face the brunt of the environmental, social and economic impacts of climate change. There are assertions that greenhouse gas emissions were a major factor in climate change; however, developing countries contribute only 10 percent of the annual global carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, Pakistan, the sixth most populous country in the world, ranks 135th in carbon dioxide emissions. 
Quoting recent report from the World Bank, climate change experts warned Pakistan of the existence of five major risks related to climate change. Those include rise in sea level, glacial retreats, floods, higher average temperature and higher frequency of droughts. 
These raise major challenges for current and future decision-making and have multifaceted impact on the economy, agriculture, water resources and urban management. 
Experts estimate the country incurs financial losses of $5.2 billion annually as a result of environmental degradation. 
The speakers added that Pakistan had witnessed devastating floods and droughts. The seesaw weather patterns are a new phenomenon but the term 'climate change' was neither widely recognised nor completely understood in the country. In fact, global warming and climate change is still seen as a global issue and policy makers and stakeholders in Pakistan have been unable to root it in the indigenous context. This hampers discussions and consensus building on the subject and exacerbates the problem.
Dr Bruce A McCarl, Regents Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University, while delivering the presentation, "Climate Change and Decision Making: An Economic and Agricultural Perspective" said as a result of climate change, there had been increases in rainfall intensity and dry periods between events and Pakistan suffered more than any place in the world. "Due to the impacts of the climate change, crop yield will reduce drastically by 2030 in many regions of the world," he said. 
He added that the number of the warmest years was increasing, which in turn accelerated evaporation from the ocean, increasing the annual rainfall. "But Pakistan has seen a decline in recent years," he said. 
"All 12 years since 2000 are among the 14 warmest years since 1879 and only one year during 20th century-1998-was warmer than 2012," he said, adding that the year 2012 was the 36th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average.
Dr Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal, Head of Agriculture Section at Global Change Impact Studies Center, Islamabad Pakistan in his address, "Climate Change: Vulnerability of Pakistan and Impacts on Agriculture," said the growing season length of wheat and rice in Pakistan will be reduced as a result of climate change with negative effects on yield. He said the reduction was greatest in the semi-arid areas and rice seemed to be more sensitive to climate changes than wheat, as evidenced by greater yield reduction of rice under the same scenarios.
Quoting data, he said Pakistan had continuously witnessed history's worst disasters since 2001. "Both irrigated and rain-fed agriculture were vulnerable to climate extreme events. "In 1949-50, the agriculture sector was contributing 53 percent in the country's GDP, which dropped to 31 percent during 1980-81, and during 2012-13 it has dropped drastically to only 21.4 percent."
Dr Shoaib Zaidi, Dean of School of Science & Engineering, Habib University, Professor Ilan Chabay, Dr Balgis Osman-Elasha and Dr Heinz Gutscher of the University of Zurich also spoke.
(report By Amar Guriro, Daily times, 26 January 2014)

The biggest Solar Power Plant in Asia

Solar Power developer, Welspun Energy has beaten its own record for the largest solar power project in Asia, with the unveiling of a 130 MW solar photovoltaic power plant in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh this month.  The project has overtaken the Shams 1 solar thermal power project in UAE as the largest in Asia.

Implemented under the state’s solar power policy the project, required an investment of US $177 million (Rs 1,100 crore) and Welspun Energy is expected to sell the power generated to state-owned power distribution companies at a price of US $0.13 (Rs 8.05) per unit.

The power plant is a significant addition to India’s rapidly expanding solar power generation capacity, which stood at just over 2,200 MW at the end of January 2014. The country added 972 MW of solar power capacity during the 12 months prior to February 2014.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi ‘cut the red ribbon’  on the Solar power plant, calling it a “saffron revolution”, Mr. Modi said: “We have already seen the green and the white revolutions; soon, we are going to see a saffron revolution in the country”.

Energy demand is increasing in both India and the UAE and is likely to soar this decade. To meet this demand, it is pivotal for both countries to establish a strong foundation to adopt renewable energy.

India and the UAE have independently announced plans for the adoption of renewables. India has set a target of 29.8 gigawatts in additional renewable energy capacity by the end of 2017, taking its total to almost 55GW.

In the UAE, the various emirates have individual plans for renewable energy. Dubai has announced a target of generating 5 per cent of its total energy through renewables by 2030 and Abu Dhabi has plans for 7 per cent by 2020, which would make for 3GW more of renewable energy in the UAE.

While the countries have very different requirements, both are striving to diversify their energy mix with an aim to enhance energy security and reduce dependence on conventional sources of fuel.