ISLAMABAD: The founder executive chairman and Chief Executive Officer SkyElectric Ashar Aziz has said that import policy and higher tariff rates are only facilitate the importers of manufactured products rather than the importers of raw material for value added or furnished goods. Thus both the import policy and higher tariff rates are proving hurdle in the promotion of local manufacturing industry.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Customs Today, Asher Aziz said that Pakistan has huge potential for solar energy market and I see bright future of the solar energy companies in Pakistan. It is just because of the fact that Pakistan is an energy deficient country and demand for power is increasing day by day with the flow of foreign direct investment in Pakistan. Furthermore, power tariffs for domestic and commercial sectors also create a huge space for solar energy marketing companies in Pakistan.
“We stepped in Pakistani market with some $10 million and we have received wonderful response from both the domestic and commercial sectors, it is just because of high quality of our products and post installation of network services” he said while responding to a question about total volume of investment made his company in Pakistan.
To a question about nature of experience in dealing with state owned institutions during procedure of investment, Asher Aziz said that it was good experience, however, our partners here in Pakistan are well known industrialists and businessmen and have expertise in dealing with concerned government departments. Therefore, we remained quite successful in completing all the due procedures.
To another question, he said that his company planned to install manufacturing units of components of our products in Pakistan; however, Pakistani import policies and tariff rates only facilitate the importers of manufactured products rather than the importers of raw material for value added or furnished goods.
“Presently, company is providing almost all the required services to the customers including the site services, remote services and support services. SkyElectric site services teams perform a complete solar installation survey and electrical power requirements review. They analyze the solar and backup power requirements and can recommend the right SkyElectric Smart Energy System package to you” he maintained.
To a question about a few of salient features of products and services offer by his company he said that SkyElectric Smart Energy System was a next generation solar energy production, management and storage solution. The smart energy system is fully integrated and complete with all the necessary components including solar panels, solar and battery hybrid inverter, high energy lithium-ion battery packs and smart flow, intelligent energy and storage management software.
The Smart Energy System provides you with complete visibility and control over your energy infrastructure such as solar and battery energy levels, grid energy outflows and inflows and your net energy savings. Smart flow, intelligent energy management software, monitors current and predicted solar, grid, battery and load conditions and takes decisions to manage your energy resources so you always have the highest availability of energy at the lowest possible cost.
He said that countries with unreliable power grids had a number of backup power solutions, such as diesel generators, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and solar energy systems with conventional lead-acid batteries. The SkyElectric Smart Energy System has energy management intelligence and unique battery technology that makes it the cost and convenience leader amongst all the alternatives.
Giving an overview of const comparison between products offered by his company and others products available in the market, Asher Aziz said that a cost comparison analysis was conducted, which compared the projected costs incurred over a 10-year period by SkyElectric’s s systems, generators of comparable size, and comparable conventional solar systems with lead-acid batteries and no energy management intelligence. The results show that even without taking into account the potential cost savings of Smart Flow energy management software.
SkyElectric systems proved to be a more cost effective option than both generators and conventional solar systems. This is because generators are subject to fuel costs, which continuously add to the total cost of ownership of the system. Additionally, fuels costs can be unpredictable and generally follow a rising trend, making it hard to cap the total cost of ownership over ten years as fuel prices have no pre-set upper limit.