THIS is apropos of Raza Kharal’s letter ‘Protests and energy crisis’ (July 5). I agree that without electricity, the economy of a country cannot sustain at all and that production of electricity should be the first priority of the federal and provincial governments.

But the author’s suggestion that the Punjab government should go for solar and wind energy for huge production is highly optimistic and unrealistic at this stage.

We have various examples throughout the world about the big promises by solar and wind enthusiasts, which remained undelivered.

The reasons for its failure are mainly ‘higher cost’ per unit, ‘cyclic nature’ and other technological problems. We, as a developing nation, are not ready yet to invest a large amount of money on these types of projects on a large-scale and that solar and wind energy will remain small players for the next 20 to 30 years at least to bridge the gap between the energy supply and demand.

HAMMAD ANSARI Karachi