Karachi: In the middle of the heat of forty degrees which paralyzed the coastal city of Karachi in April, Saad Saleem castigated its air conditioning with a quasi-abandon.
Electricity prices have increased, but the wealthy entrepreneur has been not kicked since he spent US $ 7,500 to install solar panels on the roof of his bungalow as part of a solar boom in Pakistan.
Saleem bought its modules two years ago, while the International Monetary Fund and economically besieged Pakistan hammered a preliminary rescue program. As part of the agreement, Pakistan has greatly increased electricity and gas prices to support suppliers in difficulty in the highly unscathed sector.
Pakistani are now paying more than a quarter more on average for electricity, by triggering a race to install solar modules.
Last year, Solaire represented more than 14% of Pakistan's power supply, compared to 4% in 2021 and moved coal as the third energy source, according to Ul Energy Think-Tank Ember. It is almost double on the part in China, the world's best supplier of solar panels and a world leader in green technologies, and one of the highest rates in Asia, according to reuters' analysis of bilaire data.
But the explosion of solar absorption has omitted many people in the urban middle class in difficulty in Pakistan, who were forced to reduce electricity in the face of arrow invoices, according to interviews with more than two dozen people, including energy managers, consumers and analysts in the electricity sector. Most of the country's solar panels are not connected to sell excess network capacity, so the advantages of cheap and reliable power are not widely shared.
The leak of wealthy Pakistani with solar access from the national network has brought a hard blow for those who rely on expensive conventional sources of power. Electricity companies that have lost their most lucrative customers have been forced to increase the prices of their pool of narrowing customers to cover operating costs, according to Arzachel, an energy consulting company based in Karachi.
Some observers also blame financial stress in the energy sector on agreements that Pakistan makes with China for Beijing to finance billions of dollars in electricity generation contracts, many of which involve coal -fired power plants. Pakistan is late on many payments and has been in talks with China to extend the time it must reimburse the debt.
Countries like South Africa are also faced with the expansion of energy differences after wealthy residents have adopted solar energy. But analysts look at Pakistan particularly closely due to the pace to which the nation of 250 million adopted the energy based on the sun.
“This could serve as a remuneration on how regulations and policy must follow technological change and rapidly evolving economy,” said Haneea Isaad, specialist in Energy Finance based in Islamabad at the Institute of Energy Economy and Financial Analysis.
In an interview with Reuters, the Pakistani minister of the Awais Leghari power recognized the energy gap, but noted that the prices have decreased considerably since June 2024, when the IMF has approved discounts.
He also underlined a strong absorption of solar energy by rural Pakistanis, many of which had previously had limited access to the grid. Many non -urban Pakistanis have installed small solar configurations to meet their power needs, which are generally much lower than those of their counterparts living in the city.
“Pakistan has in fact crossed a solar revolution,” he said. “The grid will become cleaner from day to day, and this is something we have achieved as a nation of which we are proud.”
The IMF did not return the requests for comments.
