By Qamar Bashir
Ironically, everything in Pakistan seems to be upside down and anticlockwise. The
country often experiences the opposite of what is typically needed for sustained
and rapid progress and development. Major decisions that heavily impact the
country are often made behind closed doors, based on hearsay, opinions, desires
and vested interests rather than deep research and thorough analysis. Factors such
as considering all pros and cons, anticipating all possible outcomes, identifying
stakeholders, and assessing the policy's impact on them are often overlooked.
Additionally, there is a lack of measuring benefits versus losses. In a more ideal
scenario, policies would be tested on a smaller target population to evaluate
outcomes before being implemented nationwide.
In our case, knee-jerk reactions often lead to policies being arbitrarily imposed on
the nation without thorough consideration of their implications. Only after these
policies fail to produce the desired results do authorities conduct studies to identify
their faults, a process that should ideally precede policy implementation.
For instance, the government imposed a policy of telemetry to encourage
businesses and households to adopt solar energy. This policy aimed to help
produce cost-effective electricity, reduce the burden on the country's fragile
distribution system, decrease the import bill of LNG, Furnace Oil, and diesel, fill
the demand-supply gap, avoid and reduce load shedding, and add excess energy to
the national grid.
Initially, the policy faced challenges in gaining traction. However, following
multiple increases in electricity charges, which became so exorbitant that even
upper-middle-class households earning up to Rs 300,000 per month struggled to
make payments without sacrificing essential necessities such as children's
education, decent clothing, nutritious food, and rent payments if they did not own
their accommodation.
Telemetry emerged as the most viable solution to address the hefty electricity
charges. As demand for telemetry increased, a robust supply chain developed to
cater to this growing demand. creating many job opportunities all along the supply
chain. Households with some savings left, invested in telemetry and began
benefiting from reduced electricity bills, while contributing cost-effective and
clean energy to the national grid, saving millions in the process to the government.
All of a sudden, the government decided to reverse this policy, citing illogical,
irrational, and outrageous reasons, which even in their hearts they knew had no
basis and would hurt people and the country immensely.
The first reason given was that the government is supposedly subsidizing affluent
households by paying them Rs. 19, and in some cases Rs. 22, for each unit of
electricity transferred to the national grid. However, this claim is inaccurate. In
reality, it is the households that are subsidizing the government. The government
sells electricity to consumers at the rate of Rs. 65 per unit, while it purchases the
electricity from households at Rs. 19, which is 3.4 times less than the selling price.
If the government decides to punish people for generating clean and
environmentally friendly energy by either reducing the purchase price or reversing
the policy altogether, households may install batteries to store the energy instead of
transferring it to the national grid which would deprive the national grid from cost
effective and clean source or energy.
Furthermore, the government is unfairly charging affluent households for
converting to solar systems, portraying them as if they are committing a heinous
crime and making them feel guilty for increasing the burden of electricity charges
on the poor segment of society. In reality, the failure of the government to pay
back hefty electricity charges to the Independent Power Producers is a major factor
contributing to the ballooning electricity circular debt, and the telemetry policy has
nothing to do with it.
The government is also unfairly charging affluent households as if they are
violating the telemetry policy for converting too fast on solar energy, without
realizing that it was the duty and responsibility of the policy makers and the
planners to determine the speed of conversion on solar system through automatic
check and control system, notwithstanding the fact that the government should
encourage fast conversion of households to clean energy instead of terming them
some kind of criminals instead of rewarded them for fast conversion of the country
to the clean electricity system.
The government is adamant about shifting the burden of their incompetencies to
affluent households without realizing that responsible governments worldwide are
encouraging and providing meaningful incentives for households to convert to
clean energy sources.
In their eagerness to punish households for the success of their own policy, they
overlook many examples of countries where telemetry is encouraged due to its
overwhelming benefits.
Successful implementations can be seen in countries like Germany, Australia, and
the United States, where households are encouraged to adopt solar energy systems
due to numerous benefits. Firstly, at the household level, such systems can
significantly reduce electricity bills, providing long-term savings. They offer
energy independence, particularly in Pakistan with unreliable grid power, and can
serve as a backup power source during outages. Additionally, excess energy
generated can be sold back to the grid, further offsetting costs and potentially
providing an additional income stream.
On a national or country level, promoting solar energy reduces reliance on fossil
fuels, which enhances energy security and reduces the risk of price fluctuations in
fossil fuel markets.
Diversifying the energy mix with renewables like solar also helps to mitigate
climate change by reducing carbon emissions. This shift toward cleaner energy
sources can lead to improvements in air quality and public health while
contributing to biodiversity conservation by reducing habitat destruction and
pollution associated with fossil fuel extraction and use.
Governments worldwide have introduced various incentives to promote solar
energy adoption. For instance, Germany's feed-in tariff scheme guaranteed fixed
payment rates for renewable energy producers, including households with solar
panels, leading to a rapid increase in installations.
In the United States, federal and state-level tax credits, rebates, and other
incentives help reduce upfront costs for households and businesses. These
incentives not only benefit individual households but also society as a whole by
reducing carbon emissions, improving air quality, and creating jobs in the
renewable energy sector.
Foregoing in view, instead of blaming affluent households for a crime they never
committed, the government should devise a plan to subsidize the poor segments of
the society to convert their households to solar systems.
The government should also consider phasing out Independent Power Producers
(IPPs) that were created due to incompetence, lack of relevant knowledge and
foresight by government policy makers, planners, and implementers.
A third viable option is to reduce electricity prices, which would automatically
discourage further conversion to solar systems, though this is highly inadvisable.
Furthermore, the government should, in all fairness, bring to justice all those who
were responsible for the installation of IPPs, grid losses, electricity theft, making
faulty and short-sighted policy decisions, and those who received massive
kickbacks in the process. They should desist from victim-blaming, which in this
instance is not the government but the people of Pakistan.
