Zubair qureshi Islamabad
Denmark is a global leader in clean and renewable energy and has declared the country would be 100 percent free of fossil-fuel energy by 2050. With 45 years in energy conservation, Denmark’s energy experts are currently in Pakistan to hold meetings with the local officials, mainly of the Ministry of Energy as follow-up to the last year collaboration initiated between the two countries.
The Danish delegation’s head, Director, Centre for Global Cooperation, Danish Energy Agency, Ulrik Eversbusch in an exclusive interview with Pakistan Observer, Monday termed the cooperation between the two countries in renewable energy quite important in terms of long-term achievements.
Mr Ulrik during the interview held at Ambassador Lis Rosenholm’s residence said it was two-fold cooperation, government-to-government and peer-to-peer level and the Danish experts looked forward to assisting the Pakistani experts in renewable energy technology. He however said, the two sides needed to discuss and come over challenges of connectivity, forecasting, financial pricing, de-risking of projects and above all how to optimize the country’s grid.
Last year in September too, a team of Danish experts in energy sector had arrived and held workshops and training sessions with the Pakistani officials from various public sector power and energy companies to support the Pakistan government’s transition to green and clean energy.
Since Pakistan has adopted an ambitious policy for Alternative and Renewable Energy (ARE) to transform its energy sector and generate 60pc of all energy through clean and renewable sources by 2030, Denmark, which is a global leader in green energy, has entered into the picture.
The country’s experts are exchanging relevant technical knowledge and knowhow and the Danish authorities are providing technical assistance under the Danish Energy Transition Initiative (DETI).
The collaboration was formally agreed and signed last year on July 14, by Energy Minister Hammad Azhar and Denmark Ambassador Lis Rosenholm in the presence of several high-level civil servants from relevant Pakistani and Danish energy.
While highlighting various projects successfully executed by DEA in around 19 countries of the world, Ulrik Eversbusch said DEA looked forward to supporting the highly ambitious Renewable Energy (RE) targets for Pakistan based on Danish experiences during decades.
About the present cooperation with Pakistan, Ulrik Eversbusch said he had a very good and productive dialogue with Pakistan energy authorities.
He said the Pakistan RE targets for 2030 were definitely very ambitious but a newly World Bank study showed the targets could be met in a cost-efficient way. “We are happy to share Danish experiences to support the green transition of Pakistan energy sector,” he said.
Ambassador Rosenholm also emphasized the target could be achieved as there was a will at the top level and the Denmark government had best solutions with rich and enhanced expertise to help Pakistan achieve this. We need to set some goals in order to achieve something, she said. Ulrik Eversbusch also termed it a realistic and ‘achievable’ project.
