A SOLAR-POWERED aircraft took off from Abu Dhabi on Tuesday for a voyage around the world that will take five months to complete.
About a year ago, that goal seemed very distant. The speed with which developments in solar energy are progressing is truly breathtaking, and we should take heed of the enormity of the promise that is gradually opening up before us. We are living on the cusp of a revolution that promises to transform our lives much like the spread of cellular communications did.
Prices of solar panels are dropping steeply, by almost 70pc since 2011, and the cost of a unit of solar energy has fallen from 21 cents in that year to 11 cents today. At six cents, the technology becomes viable for large-scale commercial adoption because its costs will be competitive with those of coal. That goal is less than five years away.
In many ways, the move towards alternative sources of energy is already under way in Pakistan. Across the mountainous north, for instance, micro-hydel turbines that generate electricity from streams are being adopted at an accelerating pace, and many inaccessible villages are already lit up at night with free electricity in the summers.
A few enterprising entrepreneurs around the country are already setting up solar operations, selling residential equipment that can charge a UPS capable of running an entire house. The International Finance Corporation is already offering enterprise loans for manufacturing outfits in Pakistan that wish to run their operations entirely on solar energy.
In villages across the country, solar panels are becoming an increasingly common sight. There may still be a long way to go, but the distance can close fast once the right price point is crossed. All the government needs to do is to get out of the way.
An upfront tariff for solar energy is a good beginning, but the real potential for this innovation will be in household use, what is called point-of-consumption use within the industry. For that, incentives for import and local manufacture of solar panels will play a big role, as well as net metering, a technology that enables households to sell surplus electricity generated in their homes back into the national grid.
The heroic flight of Solar Impulse demonstrates that no heights are too high and no distance too far when imagination is coupled with the power of technology. — Dawn
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