Following photo appeared in both Jang and Dawn of May 29, 2008. It shows residents of Baldia Town Karachi have resorted to harnessing Wind Energy to produce electricity. We’ve discussed Electricity shortage and alternate ways to produce electricity in Pakistan in several posts here. I am happy to see this indiginous effort on part of a middle-class community to control their own destiny where Government has failed to provide for them. Wind is usually in abundance in coastal areas of Pakistan. More communities may emulate this example.
Aamer,
I totally agree with you. Can you please help me in getting started with looking into alternate energy solutions for my house and farmland in Punjab? We’re trying our best to increase our agricultural and dairy farm yields but the power crisis is not helping….
Any feedback/suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks!
Hi Tina,
Yes, you can do two things when wind speeds rise beyond the threshold of your wind turbine. (a) change the pitch of the blades – requires more expensive technology than utilized in the photo, and (b) put brakes on and lock the gearbox from turning – problem is that you might have to do it very often if your wind speeds vary a lot so it cannot be a manual process, and if your wind speeds are not high, than the power produced is quite low. Lets not forget that having a ‘paun chakki’ to run a variable speed fan is one thing, but one that provides a relatively constant AC voltage to run general household items would require power electronics, which again raises the costs.
There are several startups in the US and Europe that are working on mini-turbines for residential installations – so the technologies are blooming but the economics haven’t been figured out as yet. But there is lot of potential if done right and professionally.
Sidhas—yes, I am interested in it. Thanks for the link.
The picture caption is the first thing I noticed that made me shake my head in disbelief. As sidhas mentioned, this process is being advertised as being old.
What we have to learn is that, we cannot follow others in being technologically advanced and modern, why not be one step ahead of them. i.e., in this instance, we cannot meet our demand for energy, water, electricity etc, why not find alternative ways of doing it. Something that the western world is slowly getting used to, we may already be experts at, by the time they need help in it. Talk about Gas prices in the U.S.
sidhas says:May 29th, 2008 11:10 pm
One of my acquaintance who runs a farm near Karachi has done the same to generate electricity. He told me that the wind speed is good in Karachi and elsewhere in the province of Sindh for generating electricity.
Jang
Tina,
You may find this site interesting.
Here is Consulting firm called empower based out of New Zealand that implemented pilot project in Karachi “turning manure into electricity” and they also work on other sustainable projects.
http://www.mpwr.co.nz/index.php