Pakistan’s vast renewable energy potential remains largely untapped for a mixture of reasons: political instability, inadequate budgets, minimal investment in research and poor indigenisation of technology. Despite the increase in small scale renewable energy installations in the country in the past year (solar photo-voltaic panels, micro hydropower plants, solar wind hybrids and wind energy), Pakistan still needs considerable investment for the development of large scale renewable energy-based projects.

Perhaps Pakistan could learn from its next door neighbour India whose renewable energy sector is now 5.5per cent of its energy mix and growing by the day. The installation of grid-connected renewable energy (excluding large hydro) in India has grown from 3.5GW in March 2002 to 28GW in March 2013, which means an annual growth rate of 23pc. Last year, 51.23 billion kWh of electricity was generated from grid-connected renewable power to meet the annual requirement of about 60m people.

The goal of the National Solar Mission that was launched in 2010 in India is to produce 22,000MW of solar power by 2022 (both solar photo voltaic for direct electricity supply and solar thermal for heating/cooking). This will increase domestic manufacturing capacity, develop manpower and support research and development in solar energy.

By 2020, 15pc of the electricity in India is to be produced from renewable sources and there is a preferential tariff for wind, biomass, and small hydro and solar energy. There is even a tax on polluting coal ($1.0/tonne) to fund clean energy. According to Chandra Bhushan, the deputy director general of the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi, “the question is how do we keep conventional power plants idle? We should only operate them when there is no wind or no sun (to run the alternative energy plants). Renewable energy is possible in the South Asian region. We could set up a regional grid from Dhaka to Islamabad but how to fund it? Reduce the price of renewable by increasing demand”.

Despite falling costs, however, renewable energy is still expensive, but as Bhushan points out, “the era of cheap electricity is over!” Fossil fuels and nuclear energy, which make up around 80pc of India’s energy mix, are becoming quite expensive since both the price of oil and coal is going up, and then there are environmental costs as well. The burning of fossil fuels creates air pollution and the carbon dioxide that is released contributes to climate change.

Bhushan recently visited Germany, which is the country that has done the maximum work on renewable energy, and he noted that: “In Germany it is the people, the co-operatives, municipalities and communities that are setting up solar and wind power projects, not the big companies.” Germany is planning to shut down all their nuclear power plants by 2030. They have recently lent one billion Euros to India in a soft loan to expand its grid by adding renewable energy.

India is also becoming a regional leader in wind technology. Given their 49,000MW potential in wind energy, they have already achieved 17,352MW. Their target for 2012–2017 is to produce another 15,000MW. “We have achieved 70pc indigenisation up to 500kW in wind technology,” pointed out Alok Srivastava, joint secretary (wind projects) at the union ministry of new and renewable energy, government of India. Yes, India has its own dedicated federal ministry for renewable energy!

Critical components of wind turbines such as gearbox, rotor blades, generators and controllers have all been indigenised in the last few years. Srivastava stated that India has around 20 manufacturers of wind technology and they have even started exporting now to the USA, Australia, China, South Korea, Japan and Sri Lanka. “It is a well established technology up to 2.5MW single turbine.” India is also ramping up its small hydropower projects (run of the river) as well as investing in biomass (1150MW achieved so far) and bagasse (produced by sugar mills with 1985MW achieved so far).

Renewable energy needs huge subsidies at the moment but one has to give financial incentives and come up with tariff policies to take renewable energy forward as India has done. Thanks to the government’s push for renewable energy, dedicated research institutions have been set up, wind and solar radiation has been mapped and small hydro project sites have been identified. India now has world class manufacturing facilities, extensive suppliers across the entire value chain and employs over a million people in this new and growing sector. Another lesson that Pakistan can learn from India is that most of these renewable energy projects have been developed under the private sector thanks to a strong spirit of entrepreneurship.