Severe energy crises and solar thermal energy as a viable option for Pakistan

Abstract

The severity of the energy crisis in Pakistan is increasing rapidly since 2005–2006 with the increase in the energy demand for industrial, commercial, and residential sectors. The increase in domestic energy demand to 40% of the total energy consumption is due to 3.1% population growth, urbanization, and provision of conventional energy resources to widespread rural areas. More than 20% of the total production of natural gas is utilized for domestic water and space heating. In order to meet the day by day increasing domestic energy needs of the country, the industrial and commercial sectors have to face severe consequences like industrial closure for three days in the name of load management that generated unemployment and increased the poverty level in the country. Similarly, due to a shortage of irrigation water from rivers, most of the farmers are left with no option but to pump ground water, and over a million tube wells utilize already scarce conventional energy resources. Moreover, the lack of post harvest treatment of the fruits and vegetables, which needs thermal energy, is also resulting in wasting 40% of the yield and this is again due to a lack of conventional energy supplies in the agricultural farms. Likewise, the textile industry, which is considered the largest industrial sector in the country, uses plenty of hot water at 60 °C to 70 °C using conventional energy for bleaching, dyeing, and printing of cloth. If merely the above mentioned three sectors are shifted to solar thermal energy, then a huge amount of conventional energy resources can be saved and better utilized for other sectors, resulting in significantly reducing the energy shortage in the country. On the other side, the Government of Pakistan is trying to enhance the production of hydrocarbon and exploit indigenous coal resources for power generation but the conventional energy resources are very limited as compared to its demand; therefore all the sincere efforts are not meeting the giant energy needs. The Government of Pakistan has also introduced a Renewable Energy policy in 2006 to enhance Renewable Energy share in the energy mix but it failed to deliver because of several reasons mainly due to focusing only on electricity generation by PV systems and ignoring solar thermal energy, which is an economical viable source much needed for local textile industry, post harvest treatment of fruits and vegetables, and for domestic space and water heating. Solar energy, especially solar thermal energy, which is abundant in the country, is essentially a main viable option for Pakistan to significantly reduce the burden from conventional energy. Optimum use of solar thermal technology can notably reduce by 30% the burden from natural gas but also enhance the export of fruits and vegetables and improve the production of textile and agricultural sectors resulting in a poverty reduction in Pakistan. In order to achieve this milestone, the Government of Pakistan needs to shift its policy of depending on conventional energy resources to solar thermal technologies for water heating which can be used in textile, agriculture, and domestic applications.