Sketching Pakistan's energy dynamics: Prospects of biomass energy

Abstract

Pakistan is a developing economy with a mainstay shifting gradually from agriculture to industry. Improving lifestyles, population growth, and rapid urbanization have led to a continuous increase in the demand of energy. The demand-supply gap amounts to 5000 MW on average which reaches 7000 MW in the month of July when the energy demand is at peak. This shortfall causes 4%–7% loss to the gross domestic product. Energy demand is at a constant peak of 8%–10% per annum. Fossil fuels make 61% of energy mix, while the share of renewables is less than 1%. This situation calls for careful analysis and review of Pakistan's energy dynamics and to explore the potential of renewable energy resources. Biomass, a promising resource of renewable energy, is abundantly available in Pakistan. Biomass is found in various forms from firewood to crop residues to municipal solid waste. About 50% of domestic energy requirements are fulfilled by fuelwood and 34% by animal and crop residues. However, the availability of fuelwood reduces as the rate of growth of forests has shrunk to 8.8%. Other biomass resources like charcoal are used at the minor level. Bagasse produced by 70 sugar industries in the country has been found to be sufficient for the generation of 5700 GWh of electricity. Major crop residues include cotton stalks, wheat straw, rice straw, sugarcane trash, and corn stalk having production of 49.4, 34.581, 16.75, 7.83, and 5.325 million tons, respectively. Collective processing residues per annum of these crops amount to 25.271 million tons having a power generation potential of 689.25 TWh annually. Animal dung also offers encouraging potential of power generation. The total number of animals in the country is 51 million. The potential of electricity generation from animal dung at the national level has been estimated to be 4761 to 5554 MW. The municipal solid waste potential for production of energy by biochemical and thermochemical conversion is 216 kWh/t and 552 kWh/t, respectively. It was found that the country possesses potential of successfully running 15 million biogas plants. This review, which policymakers and researchers may find to be useful, revealed that biomass energy could help to achieve the target of increasing share of renewables in energy mix of the country from less than 1% to 5% by 2030 as envisaged by the Government of Pakistan.