Prospects of rural electrification of Balochistan province with renewable energy sources

Over 493 million people in south Asia and more than 1.5 billion worldwide have no access to the electricity. Unfortunately in Pakistan the power sector is facing severe energy crisis due to shortage in power generation and increase in load demand at the rate of about 10% each year. One of the main reasons is greater dependency on traditional energy sources like fossil fuels and hydroelectricity. The rural electrification is a big challenge in Baluchistan province due to dispersed load and high distance location of grids from the load centers. Rural electrification in most developing countries is now carried out with available renewable resources potential. In Baluchistan both solar and wind energy is available in abundant. In this research work both resources with other option of local coal and LPG (non-renewable) is presented to electrify the remote areas. The work illustrates the overview of power sector, total available renewable energy sources and optimal utilization of these forces at remote regions. The final analysis provides the potential based renewable energy implementation in rural areas of province.