The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in collaboration the Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB) organised a stakeholder workshop pertaining to biomass policy here on Sunday.
UNIDO Pakistan is implementing the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a project titled, “Promoting Sustainable Energy Production and Use from Biomass in Pakistan”.
Under the policy component of this project, UNIDO provided technical assistance for the development of concrete policy recommendations for policies and regulations relevant to the promotion of modern biomass technologies for both existing and future policy regimes.
Based on international best practices, UNIDO Pakistan’s technical team and their international experts developed documents, recommendations to existing policies and regulations for the better promotion of biomass, recommendations for the management and pricing of biomass resource, technical quality standards for biomass gasifier manufacturing and import.
The stakeholder workshop, attended by representatives from AEDB, NEPRA, Provincial Energy Departments, the rivate sector, academia and several other stakeholders.
The event was chaired by the Chief Executive Officer of AEDB Amjad Ali Awan.
He stressed that such events were important opportunities for sharing of knowledge, experiences and expertise.
He described biomass energy technologies as a need of the time.
Biomass energy presented Pakistan with an important opportunity to save fuel and diversify its energy mix to include clean indigenous energy sources like biomass, he added.
Neil Buhne, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Pakistan described biomass as a ‘huge resource’ for the country with immense benefits not just in energy and economic terms but also as a driver to bring about several social and environmental benefits in the country.
He linked promoting biomass with the achievement of several sustainable goals and highlighted the importance of it as part of the larder bio-economy with volume of over 2 trillion dollars globally.
Speaking on the occasion, the UNIDO representative to Pakistan, Esam Alqararah informed the audience of the role and mandate of UNIDO to promote clean and sustainable energy solutions such as biomass for industrial and other applications.
He highlighted the importance of having an enabling policy and regulatory framework as a means of really unlocking the market potential for biomass in Pakistan.
The event comprised of presentations and interactive question and answer sessions, where several key issues pertaining to biomass such as policy incentives, biomass energy targets, supply chain, pricing and the introduction of renewable portfolio standards were discussed.
