Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Economic Zones Development and Management Company (KP-EZDMC), a subsidiary of the KP government, is going to shift all economic zones to solar energy.

The initiative is the first of its kind and initially, three economic zones would be shifted on solar energy and in the next phase all economic zones would be shifted on solar energy. The decision is being implemented under the Green Khyber Pakhtunkhwa initiative of the provincial government.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) KP-EZDMC, Javed Iqbal Khattak said that under the initiative, about 30 acres land is being allocated in the selected economic zones on which solar energy generating plants of 10megawatt each would be installed in the selected economic zones. In future, the capacity of the solar energy plants would be further up-graded to cater the energy demands of the industrial units.

He said that KP was the first province which would launch such a green energy project. The initiative has been adopted on priority basis and the provincial government is highly serious in its implementation. In this connection the company has already signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with an international consortium. The project would be operated on public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

Under the initiative, he said that the company was installing 10 megawatt solar energy plants in three economic zones. These plants would be installed in Bannu, Jalozai and Karak Economic Zones. The energy generated by the solar plants would be provided to enterprises operating inside these zones. The initiative will help in provision of several benefits and the top one is making the local industry competitive.

He said that the provision of cheap electricity would definitely decrease the cost of production of products manufactured by the local units. He said the company through such initiatives would ensure early provision of energy to the industries as the local power distribution company was not on the same pace, on which they wanted to provide electricity to industries.

For the purpose, the company has also started work on the establishment of a separate power distribution company to provide electricity to industries with the cost of only Rs.9 to 10, which is manifold lower than the existing power tariff. He said that energy was the main factor of the industrial sector, which determined the cost of production.

Cutting the cost of production will make domestic industries competitive against other countries. Besides attracting domestic and foreign investors to the province, these endeavors will also help provide environment-friendly green energy to industries.