President Alvi calls for consensus-based nationwide energy conservation strategy

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi has called for launching a consensus-based nationwide, comprehensive and all-encompassing electricity, gas and water conservation strategies to conserve precious national resources and divert them for the welfare and prosperity of the people, ARY News reported.

The President made these remarks while chairing a meeting on energy conservation, which was attended by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, Economic Affairs Minister Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan, and others.

During the meeting, President Alvi underscored that a comprehensive policy and programme should be prepared after consulting all stakeholders, including the provinces, besides launching an awareness campaign across the country to conserve electricity, gas, and water.

The president said that there was a need to generate out-of-the-box ideas, absorb creative ideas, benchmark best practices around the world, develop policies and strategies around them and ensure their implementation on a timeline basis to achieve the desired objectives in the shortest possible timeframe.

“Pakistan can make rapid and accelerated progress in all sectors provided it enhanced and accelerated the implementation speed on initiatives of national importance, following a strict timeline while maintaining quality and ensuring desired outputs and outcomes”, he observed.

President Alvi said that the Islamic teachings stressed the conservation of resources even if there was an abundance of them. He said the teachings of Quran and Hadith stressed the conservation of water even if one was performing ablution on the riverside.

“Islam discourages the wastage of resources and emphasizes their efficient and productive use and their sharing and donation to the unprivileged sections of society,” he added.

He called for adopting the cherished Islamic values to change our attitudes and behaviours while using precious resources which included water, gas and electricity.

The president said that a consensus should also be built among all the stakeholders including traders, businesspersons and representatives of the chambers of commerce and industries for determining the timing and procedure of closing the marketplaces, and businesses, especially in the evenings for energy conservation.

He said that a well-thought-out, comprehensive and fully sold-out strategy should be launched and implemented on a timeline basis for the replacement of all inefficient fans and incandescent lamps and bulbs by encouraging the use of efficient fans and bulbs.

The president appreciated

the idea to manage the cool load during summers which could be reduced substantially from approximately 12700 MW by eliminating the use of inefficient fans of 120 W and replacing them with efficient fans of 60-80 W.

He said that a comprehensive building plan for all houses, public places and buildings should be prepared which should compulsorily include the design and selection of construction materials to make all buildings energy efficient, and cost-effective.

He proposed that a model of energy-efficient building codes with in-built mechanisms to harvest and harness the rainwater, solarize rooftops and roof-top gardening may first be prepared, tested, and then replicated by all the provinces after achieving consensus to save precious energy resources.

The president also appreciated the idea to incentivize the usage of e-bikes in place of fuel-driven bikes by encouraging and incentivizing the conversion of the existing bikes into e-bikes and increasing the manufacturing capacity of e-bikes within the country which, he said, would not only benefit the bike owner but would also substantially reduce the fuel import bill.

He said that a consensus should be built across Pakistan among all the stakeholders for water pricing. He said that a large percentage of the water was wasted due to inefficient use of flood irrigation which also drained down the nutrients from the soil which reduced the productivity of the crops.

He said that a fully sold-out water pricing policy would help in the efficient use of water and saving thus made could be diverted for productive use.

President Alvi emphasised the need for carrying out the electricity, gas and water audits of all public sector buildings across the country to identify energy and water-inefficient appliances, switches and habits, and later put in place a mechanism to replace all such appliances with efficient ones to preserve and conserve energy and water.

The president said that Pakistan suffered from climate change-induced super floods, which caused devastation across the country but also brought precious water to Pakistan.

President Alvi stated that in France the building codes included the use of rooftops for plantation and solar systems, which was helping them save energy, adding that the solarization of motorways in France was also creating a large amount of green energy which can also be emulated.