Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal on Sunday focused on the urgent need to organize both the public and private sectors for cheap production of eco-friendly renewable energy for daily life.
Minister Ahsan Iqbal said, “Pakistan has wind and solar, huge potential to produce renewable energy,” adding that around 30,000 MW (megawatts) could be brought into being from these sources. “However, to make this possible, we need dynamic private and public investment,” he said while discussing on the final day of an international conference on renewable energy at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Mr. Iqbal said the federal government . was working on five important posts to make sure the country’s transfer from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy.
He explained, “These pillars include a structure for innovation to find technology-based solutions to activate investment through in the past unused or non-existing sources such as an Asia Energy Transfer investment policy agreement within Pakistan and across Asia local cooperation and the growth of mutually dependent energy markets across Asia, and to make sure a just energy transfer.”
The minister also shared. As for Asia, home to half of the world’s population, the continent is entering the “Asian Century” and will partner substantially with global GDP (gross domestic product). “We must avoid compounding the climate crisis and focus on profitable solutions. The West has often made unreliable choices about energy wasting, which has gone bad climate change.”
minister Iqbal, said It was a point of view that renewable energy solutions must grade justice, especially in remote areas like northern Pakistan and Balochistan Looking forward to 2047, the government’s vision is surrounded by the “5 E’s”: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate, with one focusing specifically on energy, with a focus on making it cheap, green, and accessible.
He said, “Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Sindh have a lot of possibilities to produce solar hydropower and wind energy, but the central policy structure is hard to restrict their ability to invest in this.”.
Other speakers included Dr. Fiaz Chaudhry, chairman of the NTDC (National Transmission and Dispatch Company); Shahjahan Mirza, head of the PPIB (Private Power and Infrastructure Board); energy expert Haneea Isaad; and Syed Mustafa Hyder, head of the Pak-China Institute, among other Pakistani and international experts and researchers.
