Energizing Pakistan with a sizzling solar policy
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Pakistan is readying to announce a new solar power policy in August that will supposedly help it tide over perennial power shortages. Why is this important? Pakistan has a serious power paradox. Its installed electricity generation capacity is over 41,500MW and the demand is 30,000MW, according to the National Economic Survey 2021-22. And yet transmission and distribution capacity is just 22,000MW, while residences and industries are actually barely getting 17,000MW.
This is clearly a national crisis — as is amply demonstrated by the power outages that many experience for up to six hours a day in urban areas and that go up to twice that, or even higher, in rural or suburban regions. For a country aspiring to recover from one of its worst runs of economic performance in decades, the last thing it can afford is an energy shortage that cripples badly needed productivity and growth.
The persistence of power outages is due to several factors, key ones being an overwhelming dependence on thermal power produced with imported fuel for which there is not enough money in the reserves; inadequate power bill recoveries which have ballooned the energy sector circular debt to record levels affecting the production cycle; not having enough capacity to distribute even the power being produced; increasing line losses that consumers have to subsidize; and having to pay producers at installed capacity instead of produced volumes.
All this has led to Pakistan now producing and selling the most expensive per unit electricity in its history and, thanks to the poor economic conditions, a growing inability of consumers to afford power. This is why news of a new solar power policy in the offing is a step in the right direction.
But what guarantees are there that the new policy will not meet the same fate as that of the conventional hydel, thermal and coal power generation policies? Power Minister Khurram Dastgir last week said while the contours of the policy would be unveiled on August 1, the government is seeking to reduce public sector consumption of conventionally produced electricity by moving over 2,000 government offices and more than 200,000 state-run educational institutions on to solar power.
Pakistan is one of the sunniest regions on the planet with summers growing hotter and lengthier in recent years. It would be a shame to lose all this sunshine. All that is required is a long-term, people-friendly solar policy to literally energize the country.
Adnan Rehmat
This is laudable and should make a decent dent in power bills but still amounts to a cosmetic step. According to a 2020 World Bank report, 76 percent of Pakistan is electrified with only 7 percent of it being renewable energy, i.e. solar, wind and biomass. The new policy will have to introduce incentives that increase the renewable energy share in the power generation mix to a critical mass of at least 25 percent.
If the aim is to bridge the gap in demand and power supply and make it more affordable so that bill recoveries can be made and tariffs come down, then the new solar policy will be a non-starter if it does not focus on the optimal number of consumers. The policy will have to incentivize a critical mass of people to convert their homes into solar-powered households and this cannot happen without solar panels being produced locally rather than being imported, as is currently the case.
Rooftop solarization should be encouraged as it can be achieved quickly and at comparatively lower costs than other alternatives, while obviating the need to enlist any existing transmission and distribution infrastructure. While the existing policy includes net metering, which allows home-based solar power producers to sell their surplus electricity to the conventional system, most people’s experience of this has not been positive. Twinning home solar solutions with net metering is still a cumbersome process and often requires palm-greasing officials at the state power utility offices. This will have to radically change to make the process consumer-friendly.
But importantly, Pakistan will need an indigenous solar cell manufacturing industry to scale up phenomenally fast, if solar rooftops are to become a common sight across the country. This will require a slew of incentives, including tax holidays for manufacturers and distributors for anywhere up to 10 years. Pakistan is one of the sunniest regions on the planet with summers growing hotter and lengthier in recent years. It would be a shame to lose all this sunshine. All that is required is a long-term, people-friendly solar policy to literally energize the country.
– Adnan Rehmat is a Pakistan-based journalist, researcher and analyst with interests in politics, media, development and science.
Twitter: @adnanrehmat1
