He was speaking at an awareness session organised for member mills at the APTMA Punjab office in association with Solar Quality Foundation (SQF). Senior Vice Chairman APTMA Punjab Abdul Rahim Nasir, Vice Chairman APTMA Punjab Aamir Sheikh, Treasurer-elect APTMA Punjab Kamran Arshad, and a large number of representatives of mills were also present on this occasion.

While pointing out the energy affordability issue of Punjab-based industry, he emphasized the importance of energy in the whole energy mix of industry and stated that its share has become more than 35-40 percent in total conversion cost in the basic textiles, ie spinning and weaving.

He appreciated energy package announced by the government for exporting industry ie gas at USD 6.5/mmbtu and electricity at US Cents 7.5/kWh. The total electricity load of APTMA members in Punjab is around 1400 MW, he added.

According to him, the regional competitors are rapidly adopting other sustainable options like solar and wind. Therefore, it is right time for the industry in Pakistan to invest in other sustainable energy solutions like solar to remain competitive in domestic and international markets.

He said a few industries have already deployed solar based captive power plants and many others are interested in these solutions if right guidance is provided to them.

Speaking on the occasion, Chairman SQF Ishaq Bhatt highlighted significance of solar and its viability in current scenario. He also introduced Solar Quality Passport, which is a safety certification, a quality assurance standard and educative program for PV installers.

The solution providers informed the participants that the State Bank of Pakistan has recently announced revised refinance scheme for renewable energy providing financing (up to 100%) at subsidized rate of 6 percent (maximum) for end consumers for the tenure of 10-12 years. However, there are some issues in the new policy which need to be addressed so that industry could avail benefits of this scheme, they added.

They said there are some issues in the new policy which needed to be addressed to let the industry avail its benefits. Under this scheme, industry fall in category 01 and SBP is requested to include wheeling scheme in this category. Furthermore, category 03 limits the ability of distributed solar developers to develop only 1 MW project with financing up to Rs 1 billion. It should enhance the project limit up to 5 MW with increase in financing limit up to Rs 3 billion, they stressed.