KARACHI, March 4: The Dawood Lawrencepur Limited — a textile composite unit — had announced a week ago that it was acquiring all of the shares in ‘Tenaga Generasi Limited’ at a price equivalent to US$0.450 million. On conversion, it would amount to Rs26 million.

It is not as much of significance that the company is stepping into the energy field, as is the indication that industrialists are looking up with interest at the pariah—the wind power generation.

Up until now all they knew were either the hydel or the thermal methods of generating power. Economists and environmentalists rarely tire of counting the blessings of the former and the abuses of the latter. But wind mill farm project? That sounds interesting. Investors would still be wondering how those differ from the hydel power projects.

Energy sector analysts said around eight parties had so far applied for grant of generation license to the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra). They included New Park Energy Limited, Tenaga Generasi Limited, Green Power (Pvt) Limited, Wind Power Limited, Zephyr Power Limited, Milergo Pakistan Limited, Beacon Energy Limited and Zorlu Enerji (Pakistan) Limited.

Among those Tenaga Generasi Limited (TGL) was the target of takeover by Dawood Lawrencepur. The acquirers did not identify the sellers but merely referred to them as “former shareholders”. Sector watchers, nonetheless, said that the original owners were a Malaysian business group, Arsh Venture Group of Companies.

TGL has been described as Special Purpose Company (SPC) to develop a Wind Mill Farm Project in Karachi. A license has been granted by Nepra for generation of 50MW electricity for a period of 22 years i.e. up to 2028. A total of 4,000 acres of land has been leased out to TGL for the development of project, which would be done in phases.

The company is currently in the process of setting up the 50MW generating unit.

It will be two years more before the windmill begins feeding power to Dawood Lawrencepur, which hopefully turns out to be cheaper alternative source of energy. There obviously are no immediate benefits for the company and investors would hope that the money, though relatively small — Rs 26 million — is being put to good use.