Pakistan has been going through a severe energy crisis for the past decade, and so far the government has failed to overcome this issue using conventional modes with current infrastructure. In addition to the already disturbed energy system, recent floods and earthquakes have added to the damage leaving most of infrastructure entirely destroyed. There have been discussions on various projects including Kalabagh Dam but nothing solid has come out so far. With a growing population of more than 180 million people, Pakistan facing serious issues needs innovative attention and alternate energy resources.
The disadvantages are not just limited in a limited circle – people have died, businesses collapsed, resulting in a social chaos disturbing everyday life but it also has a huge impact on a country’s economic growth – most of the industries have collapsed and new businesses need energy to survive.
Looking at the country’s current resources, it seems very hard to resolve all these issues. There is a need for an alternate source of energy in Pakistan that could be provided with ease and affordability to most of the regions that need severe attention for getting their infrastructure back in line. Modern world is moving to clean energy models and there have been major developments in solar energy as well as wind power plants.
The dire need for energy in Pakistan has however created business as well as CSR opportunities for some. These include the Buksh Energy Foundation with their motto of providing solar energy options to rural Punjab, EcoEnergyFinance which provides cheap energy sources in rural Sindh and even our own, often maligned, KESC which has come up with their own version of alternate energy options for customers.
These along with some other local and international organizations have been transforming lives in flood affected rural areas as well as those regions that didn’t ever have any infrastructure for energy – where people still lived in the stone age era. Buksh Energy Foundation had lately been working with Microfinance portfolios based on 3 months, 6 months and 9 months basis focusing basically on improving life standards in rural areas, but later considering the growing energy crisis in Pakistan their focus moved onto energy. Fiza Farhan, CEO at Buksh Foundation elaborates, “Because to make a larger impact, you have to provide basic necessities to people whereby energy plays an important role. Without providing energy, no impact can be created within the society locally.”
In order to be innovative about its energy policies constantly, Buksh Foundation outreached several success stories and functioning alternate energy plants all over the world. And it greatly helped the organization integrating their projects with up-to-date information and technologies. In the very beginning the foundation chose Model of India- Lightening A Billion Lives Model (LABL), bringing light models to Pakistan that have been running in India for the past 8 to 10 years. LABL is a Nobel Peace Prize Winning Model. It is also a UN and IC Certified Model.
The Buksh Foundation decided to go on with it because India is a neighboring country and ethnically both countries have similar problems and most of the social trends. However it turned out entirely different when Fiza Farah, CEO Buksh Foundation visited India to see the real values delivered in comparison to provided statistics. She puts it this way, “As I remember, back in early 2012, we went to villages in India to see the impact of LABL there. To our surprise, we were turned off. There are so many projects ongoing but the reality and application of the projects is not very impressive. On these basis, we decided to launch our project in Pakistan with real statistics.”
In Pakistan, the energy project has been launched quite effectively. Project is continually impacting people’s lives in South Punjab, Central Punjab and Sindh under the supervision of Buksh Foundation. The organization is now looking forward to extend its projects Baluchistan as well as KPK.
But what makes it innovative is its work plan and promotional strategies. The team at Buksh foundation engages the entire community and they are educated about the energy project. They are trained to use the projects and it is made sure the community absorbs what actually is happening. We pick a women entrepreneur from the community and train her to become Roshan Bibi. Once she becomes really trained, she looks after the village as the agent of Buksh Foundation. Then we take two voluntary electricians from the community who are given energy training from Buksh Foundation.” These people are trained to make sure the villagers take care of any energy needs on their own.
Solar power stations powered by solar panels are installed and then Roshan Bibi gives out lanterns to people. She becomes the manager of the system, where people give/ take their charged lanterns – making it a very transactional process. She charges Rs. 24 per day for each lantern that goes out which is quite affordable as compared to kerosene oil which costs 68 rupees. This entire process is monitored and Roshan BB gets half amount for every recharge while the other half goes to foundation Kitty, which once well financed results in self-sufficient projects where villages can take care of their own expenses through the Kitty. And there is a whole monitoring system. In Fiza’s words, “It’s not just a project, it’s a whole package that impacts and changes the life of the village. In fact, it is a quick and great impact package, and helps them take bigger steps once their basic requirements are served.
That is working remarkably well. But a venture like this also needs huge capital in terms of deployments along with awareness campaigns. Buksh Energy has different ways for aids in energy production. It has a commercial part to it with two aspects: it operates as an energy serving company as well as the role player as an integrator it conserves energy and energy solutions.
Altogether, there are 80 villages where Buksh Foundation is working as an energy provider with teams that keep check on everything that is growing with the project. Next, Fiza Farhan aims at tapping 4000 villages in the next five years.
Like Buksh Foundation, there are other examples too that are struggling to transform energy crisis in Pakistan as business opportunities for foreign investors alongside helping improve the rural areas. While Buksh Foundation focuses primarily on rural areas of Punjab, EcoEnergyFinance is providing clean energy projects and tools in several villages of interior Sindh. EcoEnergyFinance started initially in 2006 after flood affected most of the Sindh. While Government and other major organizations were working on food and supply chain, EcoEnergyFinance found the opportunity to actually improve life standard of flood affectees on a wide scale. They started on a common charity based approached – to raise funds and distribute solar lights and kits in flood affected areas. But as the process evolved, they realized they want this continued in a sustainable form.
They didn’t have a huge understanding of the areas they intended to reach. To make it work effectively, they travelled in Sindh and surveyed all the issued and consequences and the basic needs while discussing it with several other local NGOs and residents of the particular areas. And now they have a good distribution network that ensures the provision of alternate energy products with warranties – so the customers can get their products fixed and repaired in case there is some issue. Which though is doing good but at the same time is also very challenging because these products are sold to these people with quality and warranty. For most people, solar energy products are new.
On the other hand, most of them also find it hard to spend money on solar energy products even with its durability intact. Jeremy Higgs, Director of Operations and Co-Founder of EcoEnergyFinance, explains, “The way we work is through our US based NGO – we raise donations to actually allow us to test things out; to buy inventory. And then we sell selling those products to these communities. It’s not subsidized it anyway. It’s actually a margin for different people in the chain; there is a margin for us; and these is a margin for the retailer. In short, they are paying for it. And in that sense it’s been difficult because there are a lot of people who say they can’t afford it.”
In terms of technology, EcoEnergyFinance is providing portable solar lighting solutions which are small handheld products with very simple solar panels on the device itself or attached by a cable. Moving to other areas as the organization expands, they are also focusing on bringing in complex devices as well. The organization has team members chosen from particular areas where it’s working and there is a report based network which they operate using Smartphones. According to Jeremy Higgs, “We have been able to visit around 1800 villages in the past six months to understand the challenges that are faced; how much electricity is available in these areas; and to try and actually raise awareness about the quality and availability of our products. We have a staff of ten people spread across two districts, and they actually report a lot of sales and retailer activity using Smartphones.”
Proving clean energy to all these areas that had lost access to electricity is not only profitable – it is changing lives. People find it easier to complete their tasks and make use of their time. There are simple examples of a girl doing her graduation by studying at night using solar energy light as well as a village native saving his family from snakes at night with the help of these torch lights. These are tiniest ways through which energy provision is leaving a huge impact on people’s lives. EcoEnergyFinance is planning to expand all across the country in the next five years to understand the needs and problems or people and be able to serve their needs. It’s a great new business with a cause!
While private organizations and NGOs like Buksh Energy foundation are integrating rural life with solar technologies, KESC has its plans too. In fact, Energy Conservation Department KESC was established in 2009 to conduct energy saving initiatives and campaigns. It is slightly less known to general public but KESC is doing a good deal by free of cost energy auditing, awareness on energy saving projects, as well as implementation of energy saving products for free. The organization along with conducting awareness seminars has also recently setup Implementation of Clean Energy head office, which entirely uses LED lights saving 80-90 % energy – and it cools the environment having ultra violet radiations at 0%. What they mainly emphasize is the use of LED lights as compared to energy-savers. These LED lights are five times higher than the energy-savers; they save energy and also keep the environment cool. It is notable that KESC project is not working with any commercial aspects – it is just spreading awareness to cut the load. These LED lights are a little expensive as compared to others.
There is a growing market out there though with little resources at the moment. But all these alternate energy products are greatly in demand in rural areas as well as urban sides. There are shops and retailer services almost in every major city now. The future of clean energy technologies is very promising in Pakistan both because of lack of energy as well as cheap and affordable yet durable solar energy products. Government is also supporting these advanced ventures – Import duty and taxes on photovoltaic systems have been removed, cutting down the price of PV modules per megawatt by 60 percent compared to last year. Most of these alternate energy products are being imported by China and other countries – and it is very inviting for foreign investors as it is an emerging market with huge demands to meet.
