Fast Track Deployment of Renewable Energy

Systems in Pakistani Institutions

Muhammad Adil Raja

Grant ProposalDecember 22, 2014

Fast Track Deployment of Renewable Energy Systems in Pakistani

Institutions by Muhammad Adil Raja is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Abstract

Continuous supply of electric power is becoming increasingly im-

portant for the proper functioning of organizations. Many electric ap-

pliances can function adequately with intermittent electricity outages.

Uninterrupted electricity supply is not critically important for their

operation. Computing devices, such as desktop computers, however,

require some level of continuity of electric power supply. Sporadic

supply of electricity has become a hackneyed matter in Pakistan. The

main reason is the inability of the national grid to fulfill the stringent

demand for electric power supply by various public and private sec-

tors in the country. The only solution to meet the increasing demand

given a constant albeit dwindling electric power is to provide every

subscriber with a few hours of electricity per day. This explains the

omnipresent electricity outages throughout our country.

Naturally, one of the possible solutions to meet this ever increas-

ing demand for electricity is to increase the sources that can produce

electricity. To this end, investment in renewable energy systems has

become increasingly important. This grant proposal is a request for

monetary funding to deploy institution-wide renewable energy sys-

tems.

1 Introduction

Almost fourteen years ago an article was published in a local monthly Urdu

magazine. The article was concerning the future of energy systems. A central

crux of the article was that in the future the national wealth of a country

would be measured in terms of energy. This is contrary to the current tying

of the currency of any particular country with the amount of crude oil it has.

It would not be an exaggeration to assert that we have entered that promised

era.

Energy has become an increasingly important indicator of national pros-

perity. Advanced countries already spare a considerable portion of their na-

tional budget to devise new strategies to generate more energy. Renewable

energy systems have been researched vigorously over the past few decades.

At the core of this propensity are desires to decrease dependance on conven-

tional sources of energy. Crude oil and coal are the main sources. Deeply

twined to this is the urge to decrease reliance on foreign nations as sellers of

these commodities.

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In Pakistan we begin to realize our national needs when it is almost

too late. As a matter of fact, we begin to realize that we desperately need

something when the problems ensuing from the lack of a particular necessity

have completely overwhelmed us. Moreover, often we do not even bother to

recognize that something is so inescapably required. Personal needs aside, we

normally do not spare a speck of our time to reflect on the possible solutions,

or even problems, having consequences to our national prosperity. The most

we do is to lament the corrupt practices of our politicians.

Energy is one such problem. In many ways, energy is like cocaine. Once

addicted to it, people do not worry on as to where it is coming from. The

only thing they care about is the continuous and never ending supply of it.

Metaphors aside, in our modern history dependence on energy has made some

nation states submissive to others. Continuous supply of energy is central

to proper functioning of almost all the sectors of our day. Irrespective of

whether an institution is small or big, private or public, military or civil,

provision of continuous energy is central to its prosperity. Moreover, energy

is possibly the main driving force of our private lives nowadays.

Given the scarcity of energy generation sources and their inability to meet

national requirements, it is incumbent upon the concerned government au-

thorities to take drastic steps to invest resources in deployment of renewable

energy systems in the country. The dire need for energy systems indubitably

puts onerous obligations upon the concerned government institutions to take

rigorous steps to fill the huge gap between the demand and supply of energy.

Renewable energy systems are increasingly becoming pervasive in Pak-

istan. It is not uncommon to observe vendors of solar energy systems in

various parts of the big cities. It is also becoming ordinary to see rooftop

solar energy panels especially in the urban areas of Pakistan. Although one

might argue that adoption of solar powered energy systems should have be-

gan at least as early as fifteen years ago, given the lack of interest among

Pakistani junta in brisk embraces of useful technology one should feel blessed

that it is even happening now.

Given this embrace of renewable energy systems by ordinary citizens of

Pakistan, better prospects for the future can be envisaged. Although such

localized privately owned systems would not take the burden off the national

grid, plans for installing them on public sector institutions can be a good

starting point.

Currently most of the public sector institutions run oil powered electricity

generators to overcome the diurnal electricity outages. This not only costs too

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much, it is also a brainless wastage of a precious natural resource. Despite its

current low prices worldwide, crude oil would become a scarce commodity at

some point in time in the future. It does not matter how distant that future

is. The fact is that world crude oil deposits have a finite limit.

As stated earlier, a possible solution could be to install renewable energy

systems in publicly owned institutions. The funding for such installments

can come from relevant government sectors. A good starting point could be

to install solar powered energy systems on public sector institutions of higher

education. Higher education institutions are the most critically important

places in Pakistan nowadays. There is a growing awareness in our country

that modern education is crucial for national development. Students and

parents alike, everyone is euphoric about the promises that modern education

can deliver.

However, like almost all other institutions, academic campuses also suffer

from an appalling shortage of electricity. The situation becomes much ad-

verse when students have to wait for the electricity to return in order to use

a computing facility in the laboratory or elsewhere. The situation becomes

rather grotesque when a huge oil run electricity generator is run to operate a

few computing machines during the load shedding hour. It appears specially

pitiable that a huge engine is being run to keep a few fans, desktop com-

puters, or air conditioners. In order to assuage the flammable emotions of

the personnel on campus, an enormous amount of oil is burnt in every single

hour of electric power load shedding.

Installing solar energy systems on the vast and empty rooftops can have

profound benefits. At the very least, they would reduce the dependence on oil

powered electricity generators. Despite the fact that they might be expensive

to install, they are expected to turn out to be cheaper in the long run. Their

high initial capital investment can be overcome by their minimal operational

cost. Hybridizing solar energy systems with the national grid can be a better

solution to keep the uninterrupted power supply systems strong and healthy.

Moreover, surplus energy could be fed back to the grid to be used elsewhere.

Adoption of renewable energy systems is also very important by the aca-

demic institutions. In laboratories in institutions of higher education such

systems exist that require uninterrupted power supply around the clock. Sim-

ple desktop machines make one example to this end. Research and devel-

opment activities require students to run certain simulations that can span

even weeks. The current plight of electricity outages clearly hampers such

academic goals.

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Moreover, it is becoming increasingly common worldwide to develop cloud

computing infrastructures. Vast numbers of computing machines on aca-

demic campuses can help fulfill this. However, this requires uninterrupted

power supply to the machines around the clock so that they can remain active

to offer their services for high performance computing.

Given such requirements, funding is sought through this grant proposal

to install solar energy systems on our campus. The various estimates of the

required funding are attached with this proposal.

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