Potential & Current Status of Solar Energy in Pakistan Policy, Planning & Strategy

When we study about, analyze & understand the basic needs of human beings, we come to know that energy is the most primitive need of human being. The developed countries of Asia, Europe Africa & Australia, the standard of life of the inhabitants is high because of per capita consumption of these countries is high. In short status of energy in a country defines the high standard of living within a country. When we analyze the energy condition of Pakistan, we come to know that, Pakistan right now is facing a huge energy crisis, lowering down the economy of the country. This is because of the dependency of power plants on conventional sources of energy such as coal, diesel & other thermal resources, lack of proper policy making & the implementation of existing policy. The study I carried out will point out the problems related to policies & problems within the departments that hider the development of energy power plants for non-conventional & renewable energy sources. We’ll find out, how to get rid of the problems we face regarding the development of renewable energy projects in general & solar energy projects in particular in policy prospective. We need to know that despite of huge potential of energy why are we lacking behind? What are the steps forward to counter the problems? I will try to sort out the problem keeping policy prospective in mind particularly of solar energy. Many of the developed countries in Europe, Australia & Asia utilize energy from the sun for the generation of electrical & thermal energy, have developed solar energy policies. United States, China & Germany are the most successful countries, generating most of the energy from solar & wind power. The reason behind the successful utilization of energy from the sun by these countries is because of their up-to-date policies, planning & strategies. These policies, planning & strategies includes immunity from tax, subsidizations of the projects, convincible bills & tariff, & provision of incentives & many more profit oriented steps that had been defined in the literature below. The renewable energy policies in general & solar energy policies in particular implemented by the above mentioned countries provide us with huge amount of motivations & tactics to develop a framework to develop solar energy projects, both of solar thermal & photovoltaic in the urban as well as in the rural areas of the country. Moreover the framework for off grid & on grid system, rooftop system, onshore & offshore systems presented by these developed countries can also be followed if comparable to the conditions of our country. This research proposal is a step towards the finding the potential, current status & policies development for solar power potential in Pakistan. Keywords— tariff; generation facility; renewable energy; sustainable; subsidize; irradiation; solar isolation; policy; transmission charges.

Pakistan, lower limit of solar irradiations was observed to be 92.38W/m2 at Gupis region in the month of December & lower limit of 339.25W/m2 in the month of June in the city of Gillgit. Solar irradiation value greater than 150W/m2 had been observed in different region of AJK from the month of Feb to the end of October whereas higher than 200W/m2 had been witnessed throughout the Northern areas & the regions of AJK during the month of April to the end of September. In these areas, monthly mean or average solar irradiations remained 107.1W/m2 to 297.0W/m2 throughout the year [1].
Whereas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa lowest incoming solar irradiation of 76.49W/m 2 had been calculated at a station at Cheratt during the month of December & highest solar irradiation of 319.33W/m 2 at Risalpur in June. Solar irradiation was calculated to be greater than 150W/m 2 from the month of March to the end of October in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa excluding for south regions, where the duration prolongs from Feb to Nov [2].
In KPK monthly average solar irradiations were found to be changing from 113.91W/m 2 minimum to 295.75W/m 2 maximum. It had also been witnessed many region in the south of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has practical potential for solar thermal & photovoltaic power.
Punjab has a minimum of 96.11W/m 2 solar irradiations, determined in the month of Dec in most of the zones of northeastern region where the factor of humidity is considerably high & highest value of solar irradiation of 315.14W/m 2 in southern Punjab in the month of May. Solar irradiation higher than 150W/m 2 , had been observed from Feb to Nov in the upper regions of Punjab excluding Muree the other hand lower southern parts of Punjab have high potential for both photovoltaic & solar thermal applications. irradiation higher than 200W/m 2 has been found to be consistent in many of the upper regions of the province during the month of March to the end of Sep for example in Mianwaali, Sialkot, Faisal-abad, & many other regions in south regions of Punjab. On average monthly solar irradiation was found to be in between the range of 138.73W/m 2 to 286.81W/m 2 during the year [3].
In Baluchistan, lowest solar irradiation of 135.73W/m 2 had been witnessed in the month of Dec at Jivani region & highest solar irradiance of 329.05W/m 2 has been calculated at Queta in the month of June. Solar irradiation higher than 152W/m 2 was also calculated throughout the year with the exception of a few regions in north & south western parts of Baluchistan, where this condition is persistent only from Feb. to Nov. Solar irradiation higher than 200W/m 2 had also been observed from Mar to Oct. It has been recorded that monthly average solar irradiations varied between a minimum value of 153.61W/m 2 to a maximum value of 281.94W/m 2 throughout the year. [3] Like Baluchistan, it has been observed that Sindh also has a lot of potential in solar thermal & photovoltaic. It has been observed that solar irradiations persisted lowest 145.29W/m 2 in Dec in the coastline areas & highest value of 333.27W/m2 has been observed in central regions of Sindh throughout June. Solar irradiation value higher than 150W/m 2 had been estimated in Sindh, exclusive of Rohrri, where irradiation was observed to be lower than 150W/m 2 in Dec. The irradiation higher than 200W/m 2 had been estimated from Feb to Oct in the province except for the northern, western & coastal regions of the province. Monthly average irradiation calculated was found to be between 164.44W/m 2 to 298.97W/m 2 during the year. [4] Annual solar irradiation higher than 200W/m 2 had been estimated in of the regions in the country except for some of the shoreline & northerly areas. During summer season, the interval of the day stretches from 12-hour to 14-hour & in winter season 8-hour to 10-hour in Pakistan. Normally, 10-hour to 12-hour average interval of the day have been observed in Pakistan throughout the year. Solar irradiation is observed to be ranging from 1500W/m 2 /day to 2750W/m 2 /day [5]. Briefly, solar energy potential in Pakistan is summarized as follow. The technological applications of Photovoltaic & solar thermal for various purposes has been found to be very much limited as compare to the available potential of the energy from sun. Research has been carried out during the last few years to find out ways to fully utilize the full potential On a smaller scale solar energy potential has been utilized for the last four to five decades. First ever solar panels in Pakistan were installed by Pakistan Telecommunication Using solar energy for heating of water is a solar thermal technology considered to be pretty established, but the utilization of this energy in our ccountry has been quoted to be quite limited for now, this is because of the market incompetency of such tools as they are pretty much expensive than the existing water heating systems & other combustion applications. Many of the private & public sector organizations are working for the development of solar thermal techs especially in the extreme weather conditions, in the northern regions of the country where the energy sources are limited & people use wood for burning & heating purposes. Such applications are very much useful in areas where wood is found to be very much scarce. Many of the industries in different areas of Pakistan are using heat from the sun for preheating of water. Many of the leather industries has recently installed solar power heaters including Siddique Leather Works Lahore, Panjab.

Major Solar. Power generation is described as follow.
Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park  [5]. According to a survey carried out in 2012, more than two thousand solar cookers are being used in different regions of Pakistan, whereas china uses more than sixty thousand solar cookers in the similar regions & India uses more than fourteen thousand solar cookers in similar regions [7]. It is the need of the country to promote solar cooker use in different areas in order to decrease the utilization of treasurable woodland wealth as a fuel.  The program or scheme has also calculated the limit of solar irradiation & also will ensure that 8.01% of IRR could be attained in the above mentioned 4 locations [18].
According to 2013 statistics, 83.30% & 43.01% rates of the system recorded to be dropped down in photovoltaic installations, from 2007 to 2013. In 2013 for RMD 10 to 12 Yuan/W a simple grid connected photovoltaic system had been installed. The rates of solar modules had been dropped from 36 Yuan/W to 4.5Yuan/W in that tenure. Gross generation capabilities of top 10 solar photovoltaic manufacturing companies in Peoples Republic of China, calculated to be 16.9 GW, whereas the yearly yield was calculated to be 13.01 gigawatt in the year 2013. The gross supplied module manufactured & fabricated in Peoples Republic of China was estimated to be 23 GW in 2013, which represents about 9.49% rise compared to 2011, comprising of 61.80% contribution of the overall global manufacturing. According to 2012 statistics, total output worth of the Photovoltaic industry was estimated to be RMD thirty billion Yuan. . According to a research carried out in 2012, China shared more than 50% of the world's total installed capacity. Even with that there had always been some hindrances for low level solar PV engineering businesses because of the commercial & economic predicament in the country [20]. The government of China announced a separate policy or strategy for attracting the local or home solar cells manufacturers for the grid networks nationwide. There is an organization governing the grid connections called, SGC (State Grid Corporation) has been anticipated to allow native firms at urban areas to mount solar system of equal to or greater than 10,000 kW, thus encouraging the companies & manufacturers.
An organization named as NEA (National Energy Administration) witnessed that the installed capacity of solar PV is going to reach ten giga-watt by the end of 2015 & 50 GW by the end of 2020. The government of China, depending upon the policy expects to minimize the CO2 emanation by less than 16.98% & energy utilization by less than 16.01%.
Under that strategy, total investment was expected to reach about $ 803 billion which was then allocated as $415.9 Billion for energy generation sector & an amount of $ 386 billion was set for construction of grid & transmission system. BRIC

D. Renewable Energy Policy of USA (Solar Energy
Prospective) According to a research carried out in the years 2010, USA contributed about 11.00% of the entire electrical energy through clean power resources & systems & it has also been observed, there was an increase of 77% in solar energy on annual basis. According to a research paper carried out in 2011 USA became one of the foremost nation state among G_20 nation states for investing & funding of wealth in sustainable & clean power division. USA in 2012 fell hard from G_20 renewable & sustainable energy headship for every single year, by a speculation dropping by 37.0% to an amount of $35.60B 1604 Capital Package permits manufacturers, have national allowance within the shadow of the ITC, permitting taxpayers to increase yield & amount of already existing power levy enticements [26]. It has been noticed that the states with lower energy burdens, slight shine most often provide with more inducements states having higher electrical energy costs & a huge amount of sunshine in order to build a momentous market, [27].
It has been noticed that the permitting process required a substantial amount of time & money, both on the domestic & commercial values dependent upon location, government, native administration, category & magnitude of the solar PV installed.
According to a research paper carried out in 2012, on Oct 2013, twenty nine states of USA, many districts in & Puerta Rico & Columbia RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard) had been established. Photovoltaic market place stresses by the facilities located in those states where .RPSs. are in their place, to tackle the augmented ultimatum from 17.0% of grid oriented demand in year 2010 to 31.05% in year 2011. It has been noticed that for five more years, state RPS was going to be the most important element for running the utility [28].
It was noticed that in 2012, the total mounted capability had been decreased from NAP (National Average Price) by 26.60% i-e from $4.10 per watt to $3.01 per watt & also NWAS (National Weighted Average System) value was decreased by 15.90% that is from $3.58 per watt to $3.01 per watt.
The United States Department of Energy has set a target to lessen down the price of the solar photovoltaic systems approximately by 75% at the end of 2020 in three sectors of photovoltaic deployment that is domiciliary roof-top, marketable roof-top & off course service scale earth steed solar PV installations [29]. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in 2008 reported that, 22-27% of domestic structures are appropriate for lay on an on-site solar photovoltaic module structure. CRP (Community Renewable Program) had been backing up the increasing growth rates of solar energy systems. According to a report by solar buzz, by 2015 US had to justify for 12.01% of worldwide photovoltaic market place up from 5.0% making US 3 rd major photovoltaic marketplace in the world [30].
The TAX Policy part of the renewable energy policy, solar prospective played part in creation of jobs related solar energy generation, transmission & distribution & also playing its part in spurring economic growth, ensuring United States effectiveness & competitiveness across the world, dropping energy utilization bills for users & commerce, & decreasing pollution & emission of toxic gases markets throughout America. SunRun released a report that an unvarying authorizing process for domestic level systems could have reduced charges by $1 billion for the next 5 years from 2010 to 2015 [31].
An act called "Ten Million Solar Roof-tops Act 2012" presented by Senator Bozeman provided a chance to the native populations to take good advantage of the solar permits & use them with maximum efficiency [32]. Most significant aspects of that act are defined as under I.
Encouraging regularization & homogeneousness for natives authorizing necessities in solar photovoltaic through the commands II.
Dropping the solar structure setting up expenses allied with native authorizing, advancing native authorizing III. Native government's contribution in roof-top, or any other platform via energy department.
Main objective of that Act was to mount PV modules at more than ten thousand, thousand belongings situated in United States of America at the end of year 2020 reducing the price of PV structures especially of the modules & inverter systems.

A. Challenges & hinderances in Pakistan RE Policy (Solar Energy Prospective)
Significant characteristics of renewable energy policy specifically the solar energy portion, of Pakistan has been discussed so far, reflecting positive aspects & then the solar energy policies of China & USA has been gone through. After studying the policies of the above mentioned countries verses Pakistan I have come to the conclusion that these policies did not provide any help to fuel significant development in the renewable area over-all & photovoltaic and solar thermal energy area in particular in Pakistan. Certainly there had been found some factor reflecting the inability & weaknesses of the International Journal of Engineering Works Vol. 7, Issue 02, PP. 98-108, February 2020 www.ijew.io policy that needed to be considered seriously. Some of these inabilities are described as under.

 Lack of Competition with Conventional Energy Systems
The modern renewable energy technology can't compete preexisting or conventional energy technology in case of Pakistan. That's the electricity generated from conventional sources is inexpensive & more reliable compared to the advanced clean power tools & know-hows despite of toll exemption. A research carried out in 2015 states the solar energy technology would have been undeniably the leading source for economic growth of the country, it the bigger investment had not been needed [33]. Because of the unavailability of domestic manufacturing units, tools of Renewable Energy Technologies are needed to be trade in, which intern escalating the expenditures of renewable energy schemes [34]. Another significant reason to take under consideration is that fuel oil is considerably endowed & electrical energy produced from thermal plants is being credited by the GOP at raised expense [38].

 Lack of Market Oriented Policies
Compared to the existing or conventional technologies renewable energy technologies are not that much market oriented & also have low market penetration rate. This is because of competition between the new technology & the existing one, absence of responsiveness in community & high rates of clean energy technologies. Moreover crude oil monopoly is very hard to challenge [35]. Moreover there doesn't exist any marketing strategy for the advertisement of RETs.
There is a need of market oriented policies & strategies to be proposed & implemented in order to nurture the market value of Renewable Energy Technologies. Elsewise the existing technologies will supersede RETs.

 Feed-in tariffs
To boost the electricity value up from renewable energy sources Feed-in tariffs (FITs) has been the best policy approach for different countries around the globe. The Feed-in-Tariffs is a tool that actually develops an excellent competition among electrical energy generating companies. Introduction of Feedin Tariffs may bring a great change in the social power sector of the country concerning the renewable energy power projects. The policy make sure the accommodation of clean energy producers at fixed tariff for specific span. Feed-in tariff rates are further decreased from time to for the promotion of innovations. Feed-in-Tariff scheme has been used in different countries with awesome results.

 Lack of Public Sector Participation
Obviously, to broaden your horizons about the facilities & utilities of renewable energy technologies in the country growth of market is very important unavoidable factor. The utilization of Renewable Energy Technologies on government structures is one of the easiest methodology to increase the dissemination of RETs (Renewable Energy Technologies) swiftly & efficiently in market. Australia & Germany are the countries that have used such methodology on practical basis.
To increase the proficiency of Renewable Energy Technologies, government of Germany palpably boosted Renewable Energy Technologies by mounting PV modules on Public sector structures. & also the government of Australia also installed photovoltaic & solar thermal technologies comprehensively in Sydney Olympic Stadium.

 Lack of Proper Framework for SE projects
To bring about the improvement of renewable energy project across the country, access to RET utilities & facilities must be essentially improved. Moreover access to the data related to different locations & facilities & technology is also mandatory. In order to accomplish the goal, a systematically durable & robust data sharing configurations & structures must quickly be constructed which must have characters like access towards attainment of correct & accurate material for the improvement, development & maintenance of renewable energy schemes. This data sharing configuration manager needs to hold relevant understanding gained through Installing, processing, Preservation & maintenance of renewable energy project.
Concluding the above this paper conveys a demanding & serious assessment of usefulness of REP (Renewable Energy Policy) of Pakistan. Foregoing RE (Renewable Energy) correlated studies, been taken a trivial method that is just relaying on availability of resources & snubbing the bottom line of policy or scheme design. I did comparison of countries, developed in solar energy with Pakistan such as Peoples Republic of China & United States of America on the basis of fruitful policy making. A momentary summary of the policy strengths such as net-metering, feed-in tariffs etc. has also been given a detail. It has been concluded that even the distribution of Renewable Energy for more than ten years cannot be substantiated as catalytic if we talk about innovative professional prospects & shifting conformist energy mix of Pakistan. Societies can't be profited despite of extraordinary enterprises. It is also concluded that the PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) & the FIT (Feed in Tariff) cannot toil to organized disposition of solar photovoltaic modules etc. The consequences suggest that the development of above mentioned policies, along with fortitude to electrical energy charges by spotting domestic perspective can be more beneficial rather enacting of the policy unaided. Whereas implementation of policies via different organizations & governmental red ribbon examination garble a decent policy.