Move to make windmill turbines locally

ISLAMABAD: The ministry of industries has issued directives to the State Engineering Corporation to take initiative for local manufacturing of windmill turbines in view of the prevailing energy crisis in the country.

Federal Minister for Industries and Production Mian Manzur Watto asked the chairman of State Engineering to explore the possibility of manufacturing windmill turbines at the Pakistan Machine Tool Factory in Karachi for power generation through windmills.

The ministry is currently evaluating international tenders for the installation of wind mills in the coastal areas of Sindh, which have been termed as potential source of wind energy by the donor community.

While the ministry was examining the technical and financial aspects of the windmill projects, Mr Watto directed the officials to complete review of the project expeditiously as the government was serious to promote low-cost windmill power generation in the country.

Pakistan has considerable potential of wind energy in the coastal belt of Sindh and Balochistan as well as in the desert areas of Punjab and Sindh. In view of the existing potential and the anticipated future energy needs, the government had set a target of at least 5 per cent of the total national power generation through renewable energy, especially wind by the year 2030.

The wind data has been collected from Pakistan Metrological Department and analysed by Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB).

The data provides that the coastal belt of Pakistan wind corridor is 60km wide (Gharo-Keti Bandar) and 180km long up to Hyderabad. This corridor has the exploitable potential of 50,000MW of electricity generation through windmills.

According to a report of Asian Development Bank on Energy Security, wind power has been a very successful technology, growing rapidly worldwide. Since 2001, installed capacity has grown by 20 to 30 per cent a year. In 2007 alone, $31 billion worth was added, bringing global capacity to 94 GW.

Today, most of the world’s wind power capacity is land-based. The size of onshore wind turbines has increased steadily over the last 25 years. Large turbines can usually deliver electricity at a lower average cost than smaller ones.