This is a story of a lady Doctor, Dr. Zarina Khan running an ULTRASONIC Clinic at Blue Area, Islamabad. She has been benefiting from solar energy as a source for heating water for the last 25 years to fulfill the demands of hot water in her clinic. Talking to me, she informed that in 1987 a local engineer designed six solar panels to form a Solar Thermal Geyser. She purchased that Geyser at the cost of Rs. 50,000 and installed it in her clinic. This installation compensated her by reducing the gas bills to only Rs. 250/month. The efficiency of solar geyser was enhanced by covering it with black glass. A black painted storage tank was used to store hot water for use in evening as well. This geyser was able to warm the water up to 30oC. These geysers’ worked perfectly for more than a decade and were replaced after that since they were leaking.
She was quite satisfied with this method of heating water so continued using solar thermal geysers. In 1998, she bought two new units each cost Rs. 12,000 from an Australian Company. However, recently she had to remove these units due to construction of a new floor in the plaza where her clinic is situated. Nonetheless, she is consistent on her strategy to exploit this carbon free and uninterrupted energy and hunting to install similar solar thermal geysers in addition to PV solar panels at her residence. She feels that youth of Pakistan should take the lead now and proactively use this energy & introduce innovations to make them better.
