Karachi’s Largest Public Hospital to Run on Solar Power
World Bank providing assistance to promote use of solar energy in Sindh.
Karachi: The premises of the largest public sector hospital in Karachi is being used to generate clean electricity through solar power.
The Sindh government’s Energy Department has teamed with the World Bank to utilise solar energy to produce renewable power at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) in Karachi.
The World Bank’s Country Director for Pakistan, Najy Benhassine, along with Sindh Energy Minister, Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh, visited the JPMC to review the solar power project being installed.
A sum of Rs 158.5 million is being spent to install the solar energy system at the JPMC to produce 1,590 kilowatts of clean electricity. Fourteen buildings and two parking areas of JPMC are being used to install the solar system.
The system carries with it 20 years’ guarantee for its operation. The investment being made to install the solar system would be recovered in three years’ time in the form of savings on the electricity bill of the hospital.
About 80 per cent of the installation has been completed and the rest of the work will likely be finished in three months.
The Sindh Energy Minister said the government had been working on the project to install solar energy systems in the buildings of government offices with support from the World Bank.
He said the systems were being installed in government-run hospitals of the province on a priority basis.
Sindh Solar Energy Project had been initiated to promote the usage of clean electricity sources in the country and to discourage the use of conventional means of power generation to protect the environment, he said.
The minister said the World Bank had been providing assistance to execute a $100 million project to promote the use of solar energy in Sindh.
In all, solar energy will be used in 35 government-run hospitals of Sindh, including eight health care facilities of Karachi.
Source: gulfnews
