Abstract—Pakistan is an energy starved country. About 38% of the country’s population still does not have grid access. About 65% of the total conventional electricity is produced from the gas and oil. The country is facing severe blackout problems due to shortage of about 5-8 GW electricity supply. Fortunately, the country lies in an excellent solar belt range. The vast solar energy resource of the country can be harnessed for the production of electricity through solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. This paper presents an assessment of the PV electricity generation potential in Pakistan. Considering social and technical constraints, the technical potential of PV electricity generation has been estimated. The study concludes that 3.525 × 106 and 455.3 GWh of electricity can be generated annually in Pakistan from grid-connected and off-grid PV systems respectively. The estimated results clearly demonstrate that the solar PV electricity generation systems have the potential to meet country’s present as well as future electricity needs.
Index Terms—Pakistan, energy, electricity, solar PV.
Khanji Harijan and Mohammad A. Uqaili are with Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro, Pakistan (e-mail: khanji.harijan@faculty.muet.edu.pk, aslam.uqaili@faculty.muet.edu.pk).
Umar K. Mirza is with Pakistan Institute of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Nilore, Islamabad, Pakistan (e-mail: mirzauk@yahoo.com).
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Cite:Khanji Harijan, Mohammad A. Uqaili, and Umar K. Mirza, "Assessment of Solar PV Power Generation Potential in Pakistan," Journal of Clean Energy Technologies vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 54-56, 2015.
