03/24/2013
The Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) approved a total of $288 million in financing for two wind power projects poised to deliver much-needed electricity to Pakistan and Peru. Affirming OPIC's commitment to support efforts by Pakistan, OPIC President and CEO Elizabeth L. Littlefield said OPIC it would help diversify its energy production to include important contributions from renewable energy sources, says a press release issued on Saturday.
"The wind power projects will enable both countries to take advantage of their massive renewable energy potential to help meet unmet demand for electricity," Ms Littlefield continued. "We are thrilled to partner with innovative US companies to bring these highly-developmental projects to realisation. "The provision of clean and reliable electricity is an essential building block of any economy," she added.
The OPIC credit facility would help build a 50MW wind power plant in Gharo-Ketti Bandar Wind Corridor, designed to generate 133 Giga Watt hours of emission-free electricity annually. Using GE Wind turbines, the Sapphire Wind Power plant would help Pakistan diversify its power generation beyond reliance on high-priced fuel oil by tapping vast renewable energy potential, which the corridor alone possesses generation capacity of over 132,000MW - virtually equal to the world's entire installed wind capacity for 2010.
To date, OPIC has supported more than $200 billion of investment in over 4,000 projects, generated an estimated $75 billion in US exports and supported more than 277,000 American jobs.
Talking about the OPIC financing the CEO AEDB, Arif Alauddin stated that he has been trying for OPIC funding for Pakistan projects for some time, and is glad to see it coming now. OPIC is already funding a SSJD Energy's 12MW Baggass based Renewable Energy Project in Pakistan.
In the wind sector, following Sapphire, Fina Energy of Turkey is the next project in the OPIC pipeline for Pakistan. CEO AEDB also stated that RE has already become the sector attracting the largest investment of any sector in the country. He expects that in the next two years Thatta alone will attract more than $2 billion in wind sector. This amount is expected to increase as soon as the solar tariff is announced.
