SLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari has directed the initiation of a pilot project for solar cookers and water heaters in selected areas of the country and has called for devising an easy financing scheme for providing them to the needy and the poor in remote areas.
He said this during a presentation on alternate energy sources at the Aiwan-e-Sadr on Tuesday.
The president directed that state resources be mobilised to develop the energy base of the country in order to overcome the energy shortages that are adversely affecting socio-economic development.
He said being an energy deficient country, all available resources must be utilised effectively to augment the existing capacity so that reliance on conventional resources could be reduced.
Most efficient: Alternate Energy Sources Chief Executive Officer Arif Allauddin said manually-charged devices and solar energy systems were the most efficient technology options for the provision of energy services to remote, off-grid locations in places like NWFP and Balochistan. He said that solar energy was the fastest growing energy technology in the world and as a result the amount of money required to produce solar energy was constantly on the decline.
Countries such as India, China, USA, Spain, Turkey, Germany and the rest of EU were already using solar energy for meeting future energy needs.
The participants were informed that the World Bank was assisting Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB) in developing an Agricultural Solar Water Pumping Programme for Pakistan and that AEDB had signed two memorandums of understanding (MoU) with leading Chinese companies for solar energy. Zardari directed the relevant ministries to build on the MOUs signed with China and other countries.
The presentation was attended by Federal Minister for Water & Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Minister for Economic Affairs Division Hina Rabbani Khar, SAPM Kamal Majidullah, Secretary General to the president Salman Faruqui, Secretary to the president Malik Asif Hayat and other senior officials of the concerned ministries
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