Pakistan’s great solar escape: A revolution from below

In 2015, Pakistan quietly laid the foundation for what would become one of the most dramatic energy shifts in the world. The Net Metering Regulations allowed households and businesses to install rooftop solar panels and sell excess electricity back to the grid at the same rate they paid for consumption. At the time, it seemed a small, technical adjustment. A decade later, it has triggered nothing less than a solar revolution, making Pakistan one of the top three countries globally in renewable adoption.

The change was propelled not by government vision but by citizens’ desperation. For decades, Pakistan’s energy sector has been plagued by chronic shortfalls, mismanagement, and dependence on imported fossil fuels. Furnace oil–based generation locked the country into volatile global markets, while skewed contracts with Independent Power Producers (IPPs) forced Islamabad to pay for unused capacity. Transmission and distribution companies — riddled with inefficiency, theft, and political interference — piled losses year after year. By fiscal year 2024, the government admitted to a staggering Rs591 billion loss due to weak billing recovery and technical failures. For ordinary Pakistanis, this translated into power cuts lasting up to 18 hours a day and tariffs that sometimes exceeded the cost of rent.

Faced with state failure, citizens took matters into their own hands. Falling Chinese solar panel prices, combined with South Asia’s highest retail electricity tariffs, made rooftop solar irresistible. In 2024 alone, Pakistan imported 22 gigawatts of solar panels — nearly half its total installed national capacity of 46 GW. By the first five months of 2025, solar contributed 24 percent of total electricity generation, overtaking gas, coal, nuclear, and even hydropower for the first time. This leap is all the more remarkable given that in 2020, solar accounted for just 2 percent of the mix. According to the global energy think tank Ember, Pakistan is now a global leader in rooftop solar, surpassing far wealthier nations in renewable adoption.

Behind these statistics are human stories of desperation, initiative and resilience, where women have sold their jewellery – a prized collection, and bought basic units to power their homes. Owners of small factories have switched to solar, broke even in 18 months and now save Rs 1 million a month.

Such stories underscore the character of Pakistan’s energy transition: it is bottom-up, crisis-driven, and largely unplanned. As Renewables First analyst Muhammad Basit Ghauri observed: “The great solar rush is not the result of any government’s policy push. Residents made the switch out of frustration with a broken system.”

Yet the solar boom is not without complications. Pakistan’s grid is facing the classic “utility death spiral.” As more affluent and industrial customers defect to solar, distribution companies (DISCOs) are left with fewer sales but the same fixed costs — from maintaining wires and transformers to servicing IPP contracts. To recover revenue, tariffs rise further, pushing even more customers toward solar and leaving the poorest consumers trapped in an increasingly unaffordable grid. Electricity sales dropped 2.8 percent year-on-year in June 2025, the second consecutive year of decline, while line losses remain near 18 percent - among the highest in the world.

This cycle is unsustainable. A March government report warned that the solar surge has created a “disproportionate financial burden” on grid-connected consumers, undermining sector stability. In other words, while rooftop solar is helping households escape the system, it is simultaneously hollowing out the system itself.

The challenge is not unique to Pakistan, but its governance magnifies the risks. Short-termism, political manipulation of power tariffs, and decades of neglect have made the energy sector one of the deepest fault lines in the economy. Unless systemic reforms are made — from renegotiating IPP contracts to cutting circular debt, modernising billing systems, cutting theft, and investing in storage — the solar revolution will remain an escape route for the privileged rather than a national solution.

At the same time, the revolution presents an unprecedented opportunity. With over 300 days of sunlight annually, Pakistan is naturally positioned for solar dominance. It has already surged ahead of its 2030 target of 60 percent renewables in the energy mix, years ahead of schedule. The United Nations has hailed Pakistan’s solar expansion as a model for energy sovereignty in the Global South. But the benefits remain uneven. More than 40 million Pakistanis — mostly in rural areas — still lack access to electricity. Without targeted policies for off-grid solar and community-based microgrids, the rural poor risk being left behind in the very revolution that has empowered urban households.

Pakistan’s solar transformation is both inspiring and cautionary. It shows how citizens, when abandoned by the state, can innovate their way out of crisis. But it also exposes the fragility of a system where essential services — from health to security, water to education and power — increasingly depend on private fixes rather than public provision.

For now, Pakistan has become an unlikely global leader in solar adoption — not because of foresight, but because of necessity. Whether this revolution can be harnessed into a sustainable, equitable, and system-wide transition depends on choices still to be made. Without reform, solar may light up millions of homes, but it will also accelerate the death spiral of a grid already gasping for survival.

- Sajjad Ashraf served as an adjunct professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore from 1973 to 2017. He was a member of Pakistan Foreign Service from 1973 to 2008 and served as an ambassador to several countries.