Current status and overview of renewable energy potential in Pakistan for continuous energy sustainability

Unfortunately, Pakistan is facing severe energy crises from the last decade due to increasing population and heavily dependence on the import of the fossil fuels. The electricity breakdown/blackouts was 14–18h in rural areas and 8–10h in urban areas. This situation has drastically affected the residential, industrial and commercial sector of the country. Currently, it is a big challenge for the government to sustain the future energy supply of the country. Under these circumstances, the research have been increased for the exploration of renewable energy sources in the country to fulfill the deficit scenario of the country. Fortunately, Pakistan is lying in such a geographical location where potential for all the renewable energy sources exists abundantly viz. solar, wind, biogas production, bio-energy from biomass and feedstock, mini and micro hydel. About 81 million ton/annum biomass production has a huge potential to produce enough bio-energy by employing different technologies viz. combustion, gasification, pyrolysis, trans-esterification process etc. Similarly, available dung from 72 million animals (cows and buffalos) and available poultry droppings from 785 million poultry birds can produce considerable biogas to produce heat and electricity. Pakistan is also blessed with 5.5Whm−2d−1 solar insolation with annual mean sunshine duration of 8–10hd−1 throughout the country. Wind speed 5–7ms−1 persists in the coastal regions of Sindh and Baluchistan provinces with more than 20,000MW of economically feasible wind power potential. The worldwide utilization of renewable energy is already on a fast track, however, Pakistan is still lacking in adaptation of these blessed technologies. Therefore, it is a high time that the government should launch a comprehensive program for R&D, commercialization and awareness of the community by incentivizing for the wide scale adaption of renewable energy technologies for the sustainable energy supply of the country in future.