PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa planning and development department on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding with a subsidiary of the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) to develop green hydrogen plants in the province.

The plants to be put up by the EnerTech Holding Company will also be used to produce ammonia for fertiliser industry, according to a statement issued here.

The statement said the EnerTech Holding Company is a fully-owned subsidiary of the National Technology and Enterprise Company, which, in turn, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the KIA, the oldest sovereign wealth fund in the world.

“In KP, the Kuwait-based company plans to convert two hydropower projects being developed by the Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organisation (Pedo) to produce green hydrogen and green ammonia,” it said.

According to the statement, the EnerTech, as part of a consortium of companies partnering with the state of Oman, is developing the world’s largest (25GW) green hydrogen project ($30 billion), which will produce around 1.8 million tonnes of green hydrogen and up to 10 million tonnes of green ammonia annually.

The Pedo also signed MoUs with the Gul Ahmed Metro Group, which is associated with the British International Investment, and the InfraCo Asia, which is a commercially managed infrastructure development and Investment Company of the Private Infrastructure Development Group, to develop green hydrogen plants in the province.

According to the statement, InfraCo Asia, which is headquartered in Singapore, has so far invested in Pakistan’s two wind power projects of 50MW each along with a portfolio of over 115MW and 15MW of hydro power projects and commercial and industrial rooftop solar sector, respectively.

The Sustainable Energy and Economic Development, a programme funded by the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and implemented by the Adams Smith International, is helping the government materialise those investments by identifying and removing policy bottlenecks, facilitating meetings with potential investors and providing technical support.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2022