With Patrol price hikes and mass power outages, wouldn’t it make sense to start investing in solar energy? I am not talking running factories with it, More like back up households and back up for essentials like pumping water or keeping the refrigerator on?
Solar is not the most efficient energy out there but with such abundance of sunny days … its still better than having no power.
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
dude we live in country which is hot like hell.
We should have a vacuumed layer on our roof top + plus on walls facing sun.
Then we could use few solar panel to keep few fans and coolers running.
And show a finger to WAPDA and not consume their over priced energy.
I am with you on this brother!!
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
i was haring a talk in one of the talk shows saying solar energy is expensive, i think they meant initially!
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
China has come up with some very cheap solar powered products and solar panels. China has same kind of population and problems as we do so we would be better off adopting whatever they can come up with as it will be cheaper than any other imported technology.
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
^ I agree with Mirch, solar panels to generate sufficient energy for a fan/lights are expensive and probably require more maintenance. Once China starts manufacturing solar panel for consumer household the prices will fall and hopefully will drive more and more people towards solar energy and lower the pressure on gas/fuels energy.
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
While cheap solar panels are great, I believe its better to have some power than having no power.
Many (rich) people and businesses use patrol run generators when power goes out. They are noisy, not emission friendly and with patrol prices on the rise, probably getting expensive by the day.
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
If I ever build a house in pakistan I will make sure I have some solar panels as a back-up, because load-shedding is not going to disappear anytime soon. The demand for electricity is outstripping their ability to produce it. It is estimated that pakistan will need 8 times as much electricity as it currently produces by 2030.
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
Easier said than done ahmadjee. you require the skills of a technician if not a full fledged engineer to keep a solar plant running. The problem with solar energy is the reliability, the world has been trying for decades now but still hasnt got one reliable solar system available. The upkeep brings the cost to the same level as gas generated power.
The best and the only economically viable alternative is nuclear. It is easier to build, completely safe and the infrastructure takes less time to set-up.
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
With modern technology the costs of solar energy is coming down and as it becomes widely available in a few more years costs will fall even more. Plus it can be set up fairly quickly.
P.s is some countries households can sell surplus electricity back to the national grid.
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
arshad5, you dont seem to know what you are talking about mere bhai. i am not trying to be condescending lekin if that was the case every other household would have some kind of solar energy run appliance. We cant even have calculators that rely totally on solar power. How much of world's electricity is produced by solar energy?
If you want to discuss viable ideas then wind is much better than solar, even that is not very reliable and requires a lot of set-up cost.
Nuclear is the only answer to Pakistan's power needs and they are completely safe and reliable. That is where Pakistan should be concentrating at for the next 15/20 years.
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
arshad5, you dont seem to know what you are talking about mere bhai. i am not trying to be condescending lekin if that was the case every other household would have some kind of solar energy run appliance. We cant even have calculators that rely totally on solar power. How much of world's electricity is produced by solar energy?
If you want to discuss viable ideas then wind is much better than solar, even that is not very reliable and requires a lot of set-up cost.
Nuclear is the only answer to Pakistan's power needs and they are completely safe and reliable. That is where Pakistan should be concentrating at for the next 15/20 years.
Well if you had read the 1st post properly then you would know that we are talking about households generally.
Secondly there are solar power plants going up in places like Spain and Germany. Each power plant can generate enough electricity for a town of about 45,000 people.
On a national level I think the best option for Pakistan is coal. It will generate a lot of employment and save a lot of foreign exchange. Pakistan does need to set up extra nuclear power stations but if the estimates of needing to increase power 8 times by 2030 is correct then nuclear will only account for about 5% at max. of the total power.
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
now is the time, cause Pakistan govt has already abolished customs duty on renewable energy equipment. and also for generators under 5KVA
specially in turkey nearly all of the houses in some cities has solar water heating on every roof top. and many have solar panels
I am sure now the panels getting very cheaper, its possible to use this over killing heat to some perfect use.
Govt should invest in mega solar farms as we have sunshine almost whole year, combined with wind turbines, will create safer and enviroment friendly source of energy.
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
Use of solar geysers is increasing in the northern part of this country.
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
Easier said than done ahmadjee. you require the skills of a technician if not a full fledged engineer to keep a solar plant running. The problem with solar energy is the reliability, the world has been trying for decades now but still hasnt got one reliable solar system available. The upkeep brings the cost to the same level as gas generated power.
The best and the only economically viable alternative is nuclear. It is easier to build, completely safe and the infrastructure takes less time to set-up.
Actually Solar energy is reliable to generate electricity, European Countries mainly, Spain, France, Italy and Greece are pursuing/favoring Solar Energy Projects, These projects can be installed and operative from 3 - 6 months, but there are few problems,
The Panels (reliable) are manufactured in China, they cannot be used in high temperature areas as we have, it need sunny but at low temp... second is the cost, both installing and operative, although few manufacturers garantee the panel's operative age upto two years but having said that, replacing one panel take considerable amount of time.
I must say that until solar energy is heavily subsidized, it is not cheaper than Oil & Gas based Elec, generation.
Instead of Solar, Govt. should focusing on Wind energy more, and individual should be very carefull while selecting Solare Enegy panels...
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
This is bit off, but still interesting…
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
Pakistan already started solar energy program in 2003 and some houses started getting solar energy in north Pakistan especially where electricity supply using national grid is too expensive. In 2005 it was decided to supply many houses solar energy in Azad Kashmir earthquake affected areas and what I believe that Pakistan Siemens was given the job. Here is Siemens site mentioning the work on solar power:
Here is News about Pakistan solar energy program that started in 2003:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/000234.html
Alternative Energy in Pakistan
Jamais Cascio
December 22, 2003 4:44 PM
It’s small, but it’s a start. According to the UN’s IRIN, about 100 homes near Islamabad are about to be converted over to solar power to test a new model for supplying electricity to outlying communities. Pakistan’s goal is to have 10% of national electricity generation come from alternative sources by 2010.
The bulk of the article discusses the various ways in which the Pakistani government is supporting that move to alternatives – with lots of “planned” and “soon” – but the real key piece is the final paragraph:
*Once electricity was supplied to villages and communities in areas outside the reach of grid-based power providers, a new social phenomenon would be witnessed, Hamid maintained. “Even attitudes would change once electricity reached a village or community in an area where there had been none previously,” he said.*I suspect that we’ll see more of this, over time. It may be easier to create a sustainable advanced energy (or information) infrastructure in areas without existing legacy/incumbent systems. Introducing new systems in areas with existing systems means having to pay the costs of converting on top of whatever the new system itself costs. Introducing new systems in regions without them can actually be less expensive than bringing them into “more advanced” markets. As a result, previously less-developed areas can “leapfrog” the established regions, a process noted most famously in 1962 by Alexander Gerschenkron in Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective.
This may be why Linux (for example) is taking off so profoundly in the developing world. There are fewer organizations grappling with the sunk costs of Windows, more new markets taking a fresh look at which solutions work best. In due time, Linux will be the standard approach for the South (the “BrInSA” trinity – Brazil, India, South Africa), and any attempt to move off of that standard will face its own conversion costs. http://www.worldchanging.com/ads/www/delivery/ai.php?filename=pixel_2.gif&contenttype=gif
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
As for Pakistan Nuclear energy expansion: Pakistan started a program on 1000 MW nuclear plant maybe in 2000 or later (a year or two after Military takeover in Pakistan), though construction was first noticed in west around 2005 from satellite surveillance of Pakistan but it became news in ‘July 2006’ when it became certain and clear that the plant is actually construction of huge nuclear power plant.
What I remember, discovery of Pakistan building this nuclear plant having such large electricity generating capacity (that also means creating plutonium for nuclear bomb) initially created a lot of noises in west but later this noise got suppressed for whatever reason.
I myself saw the satellite pictures of these plants and construction going on there, as it was big news at the time (early 2006). Size of the plant and how much electricity it would be able to produce was estimated by working out the size using satellite pictures and it is estimated figures that it would create much more than 1000 MW of electricity and enough ‘spent plutonium’ that could produce 40 to 50 nuclear bombs a year. Picture of site and news can be seen in Guardian:
[One can also read about it in ‘Washington post’ (23 July 2006)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/23/AR2006072300737.html?nav=rss_world]
Picture of site and news can be seen on this site (Guardian):
Pakistan launches huge nuclear arms drive
· Satellite images reveal major building site
Randeep Ramesh](Randeep Ramesh | The Guardian), Julian Borger](Julian Borger | The Guardian) in Washington
The Guardian,
Tuesday July 25 2006
Pakistan appears to have embarked on a dramatic expansion of its nuclear arsenal with the construction of a new heavy water reactor capable of producing enough plutonium for up to 50 warheads a year, according to a report released yesterday by a US thinktank.
The report by the Institute for Science and International Security (Isis), is largely based on commercially available satellite images showing a large building site at a nuclear production complex at Khushab, in Pakistani Punjab. Isis, a non-governmental nuclear watchdog, estimates that the huge rectangular building under construction and the circular structure inside it almost certainly represent the early stages of a 1,000MW reactor capable of generating more than 200kg (440lbs) of weapons-grade plutonium per year. When completed it would be 20 times the size of the existing reactor at Khushab.
The Khushab complex uses deuterium oxide, known as heavy water because of its chemical similarity to water, to produce plutonium and tritium, which is used as a booster in nuclear fission weapons.
The Isis report suggests the Indian government must know of the new reactor and may be seeking to increase its own plutonium production. In an agreement with the Bush administration, under review by Congress this week, India insisted several of its own nuclear reactors remain exempt from international safeguards.
“South Asia may be heading for a nuclear arms race that could lead to arsenals growing into the hundreds of nuclear weapons, or at a minimum vastly expanded stockpiles of military fissile material,” the Isis report said.
The Pakistani army is thought to have about 50 uranium warheads. India and Pakistan, which have fought three conventional wars in less than 60 years, already have nuclear weapons and an arsenal of missiles capable of reaching far beyond each other’s territory.
There has so far been no official reaction from Islamabad, although the Washington Post quoted an unnamed “senior Pakistani official” as acknowledging that an expansion of the country’s nuclear programme was under way.
Ayesha Siddiqi Agha, a Pakistani writer on defence issues, pointed out that since Washington had proposed a nuclear deal with India, the Pakistani establishment had been keen to “match it”: “The signal is that while India surges ahead, Pakistan has ways to pull them off balance. So this may be about restoring a psychological balance between the two.”
Commodore Uday Bhaskar of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Analysis in Delhi suggested the timing of the report could be intended to influence the US Congress’s debate on the Indian deal:
“My initial reaction is that one of the report’s authors [David Albright] is a critic of the India-US nuclear deal and therefore this report has to be seen in the light of its passage through Congress. It may be true but there’s a reason why the report appears now.”
Mr Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who now runs Isis, denied there was any link between the timing of the report and the congressional debate. “It is a strange twist to the debate to see a potential Pakistani threat to India as an attempt to derail the India agreement in Congress,” he said, adding that the publication was dictated more by the need to get the report out before the summer holidays began.
There is speculation in Delhi that the new plant may be a fresh sign of China’s commitment to a “strategic partnership” with Pakistan. The pair already have extensive military and diplomatic ties.
“China has supported Pakistan since the 80s and it remains the wild card here,” Commodore Bhaskar said. “At the time of the Indo-US deal, there were clear indications that Beijing thought if Washington can assist India, China can aid Pakistan.”
Mr Albright said Chinese assistance was a possibility.
“You always worry that some of this is coming from China. Can Pakistan really do all this on its own? You wonder,” he said. “That would be very serious.”
According to the Isis report, construction of the new reactor at Khushab began in March 2000 and could be finished in a few years.
“However, nothing suggests that Pakistan is moving quickly to finish this reactor,” the report said, suggesting that there may be a bottleneck in the supply of heavy water or in Pakistan’s fuel reprocessing capacity.
Re: Solar Energy for Pakistani households
From the posts above and from what I've heard from other people, I think ppl are already starting to use solar panel arrays at their homes to charge deep cycle battery banks at their homes.
With a 120W panel costing about $850 these days and prices generally on the fall, I think it'll be another 3 to 5 years before we start seeing more widescale household use of these panels.