Reposted from Pakistan Today | July 5, 2011 | Norway to invest $1b in 500MW wind power project

Norwegian company NBT has expressed interest in investing $1 billion to set up a 500 megawatt wind power project in the country to tap the more than 60,000MW of wind power potential spreading from the coastal belt of Balochistan to Sindh.

ISLAMABAD - After Turkish and Chinese companies, a Norwegian company NBT has expressed interest in investing $1 billion to set up a 500 megawatt wind power project in the country to tap the more than 60,000MW of wind power potential spreading from the coastal belt of Balochistan to Sindh.

NBT Chairman Arne Myre made this offer at a meeting with Water and Power Minister Syed Naveed Qamar on Monday. The seven-member delegation of NBT presented its business and investment plan. The delegation would meet with the prime minister along with the minister on Tuesday, an official source said. The Norwegian company had applied for the issuance of letter of interest (LOI) for the 500MW project and said that after issuance of the LOI, the company would complete a 250MW wind project within 18 months. The Sindh government had been asked to allocate suitable land in the wind corridor, the source said.

Pakistan has huge untapped wind energy potential estimated to be over 60,000MW in the coastal areas of Sindh and Balochistan. Earlier, a Turkish firm Zorlu had offered to set up a 50MW wind power station and after receiving financing from the Asian Development Bank, it was enhanced to 300MW. The Chinese electricity giant, China Three Gorges Project Corporation, is also working on a project to generate 300MW of wind power in the country. It has already applied for tariff to set up a 50MW wind power farm in Jhimpir, Sindh.

The government, the source said, had decided to expedite investment in the wind power sector as it was the only segment in the power sector where huge foreign investment could be attracted in the short term. New projects could be set up in months as compared to expensive thermal and hydel power projects, which required years to complete. The investors are demanding the government notify upfront tariff for wind projects that would enable them to expedite their investments in the projects.

The source said that the water and power minister would be meeting the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) chairman on Tuesday to decide the upfront tariff issue. He said the Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB) was working on the upfront tariff that NEPRA had assured would be implemented.