KARACHI: The Sindh government has planned a scheme to produce affordable electricity by setting up a 550 megawatts ‘floating’ solar energy plant on Keenjhar Lake.

In this connection, Sindh Energy Minister Syed Nasir Shah participated in a ceremony on Thursday to sign a memorandum of understanding between the department of energy and Go Energy Pvt Limited.

Secretary of Energy Mossadiq Ahmed Khan, CEO of Sindh Transmission and Dispatch Company (STDC) Salim Shaikh, CEO-Go Green Amar Ali Talat and Director of K-Electric Haris Siddiqui were also present.

Syed Nasir Shah said that Go Energy Private Limited was making this project with the cooperation of the STDC, the energy and irrigation departments.

Minister says 550MW project is environmental friendly and will prevent ‘water evaporation’

STDC Kenjhar Lake Power Project will lay a 220kV transmission line of about 60km to K-Electric grid station at Dhabeji in Karachi.

“K-Electric is the off-taker of the 500MW floating power project for which K-Electric has provided Letter of Intent [LoI] and the Energy Department has also provided a Letter of Intent [LoI],” the minister said.

He said that this project would be environmental friendly as it would help prevent water evaporation and would be beneficial for aquatic life.

“The project would also benefit land conservation which will promote green energy in Sindh and provide a source of affordable electricity.”

The minister said that the project would boost the economy of the province by creating jobs.

Nasir Shah said the government of Sindh was trying hard to utilise renewable energy resources at a faster pace and make it more affordable for the common people.

Apart from tariff reduction, renewable energy will also contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals to create a clean, reliable and sustainable environment, he added.

“We hope to complete the project by the end of 2026.”

The secretary of energy said that on special directives of minister of energy, work was underway on several projects to provide cheap and free electricity to the people.

He added that mini-grid stations would be set up at the district levels to provide affordable and environment-friendly electricity to the remote areas of Sindh.

The energy secretary said that the cost of electricity generated from this floating plant would be Rs15 per unit which would be much lower than the price of other power generation plants.

CEO of STDC Salim Shaikh said that compared to K-Electric, STDC line had never tripped and while its line losses never gone above 1.6per cent. “Nepra has allowed line losses up to 2pc”, he added.

Go Energy Chief Officer Amar Ali Talat said that it was a unique idea.

“Kenjhar is the world’s largest clean water lake, where a floating project has been developed with the support of government, and Energy Minister Syed Nasir Shah and K-Electric and the MoU has been signed and I am thankful to all contributors,” Mr Talat added.

He said that experts from Singapore had studied this project which will prevent a quarter of the lake’s water from evaporating.

Earlier, STDC CEO Saleem Sheikh and Go Green Energy CEO Amar Ali Talat signed the MoU.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2024