KARACHI, March 25: The Alternative Energy Development Board has provided land to 24 potential investors in Sindh for installing wind energy mills to produce 1,200 megawatts of power.

This was stated by the AEDB CEO, Shahid Hamid, while talking to newsmen after attending the inaugural session of a conference on alternative energy on Tuesday.

Saying that AEDB had acquired 34,000 acres after a struggle of four years, he lamented that the delay in the allotment of land had increased the project cost of windmills.

He said another major reason behind the rise in the windmill project cost was the delay in the approval of tariff for wind energy projects by National Electric Power Regulatory Authority.

He said that not only prices of wind turbines had gone up due to the delay, but their delivery time had also been extended for the next three years.

The AEDB chief, a retired air marshal, said that 50,000 acres more would be acquired in the province to meet the demand of future wind farms.

He said the AEDB had issued six licences to investors and 100MW to 150MW of power would be produced by windmills in Sindh by the end of 2009.

Responding to a question about tariff, he said the latest tariff rate approved by Nepra was 10.49 cents per kilowatt. The investors would also get a raise of 1 to 1.5 cents on carbon credit account, he added.

Mr Hamid said that Nepra had approved the tariff rate of four wind power plants. They included Tapal Energy, Wind Power and Millergo.

He said a Turkish company, Zorlu, had imported foundations for six turbines and their shipment for other equipment, including turbines, would reach Karachi by the end of April.

Replying to a question about public sector power projects, he said Pepco would install a 50MW wind energy plant this year with the financial assistance of the Asian Development Bank.

Similarly, the KPT and Pakistan Steel would also set up wind farms to produce electricity in the country.

He said AEDB had created awareness about alternative energy and had issued 94 letters of intent to interested investors for the installation of windmills of 50MW each.—APP