Plummeting prices of Chinese solar panels being snapped up in Pakistan at a breathtaking pace.
It’s putting pressure on a creaking grid that is obligated to continuing payments for fossil fuel power plants, also built by China.
Fossil fuel death spiral test case.
Above, Voice of America.
Below, DeutscheWelle:
A solar surge has reached new heights in Pakistan, sparking what some experts are calling one of the fastest solar revolutions in the world.
Thanks to cheap Chinese solar technology imports, Pakistan is expected to add an estimated 17 GW of solar power in 2024, which is more than a third of the country’s entire generating capacity.
The surge is “probably the most extreme” case “that has happened in any country in the world with the speed that has happened,” according to energy analyst Dave Jones, who tracks the global energy transition at think tank Ember in the UK.
This growth places Pakistan as one of the top installers of solar panels globally for 2024, in the company of much bigger, richer economies like China, the US and Germany, Jones’ team found.
Countrywide, consumers, businesses and industries are rushing to tap into the cheap renewable power source as an alternative to the erratic and expensive state-provided, largely fossil-fuel-based energy.
Pakistan’s unreliable power grid, compounded by under-supply and poor infrastructure, means that millions of people live in constant uncertainty. Many households around the country have also been crippled by soaring energy prices over the past three years, inflated by high oil and gas prices post Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, an over-investment in thermal power plants and government subsidy cuts to meet International Monetary Fund loan conditions.
“It’s come to that point now that, for daytime electricity, it is a no-brainer for people in Pakistan to go out there and to be doing this on the scale that they’re doing it,” Jones said.
It is unclear exactly how much of the total imported solar capacity will be installed in 2024, as government records cannot keep pace with the speed of the consumer-led transition. But for homes across the country, the energy switch is already making a difference.
When Shafqat Hussain’s mom nearly died during a 28-hour power outage at their family home that coincided with a heatwave, he decided it was time to harness the power of the thing that almost cost his mother her life: The sun.
“There is no alternative in this country,” said Hussain, who lives in central Islamabad with his three children, his wife and his parents.
His mom’s experience — she spent two days in the hospital recovering from heatstroke after suffering inside on a scorching summer’s day without electricity — was the catalyst for him to install solar panels on his rooftop. His colleague recommended he buy from a local company that was importing the panels from China.
“When you don’t have any electricity, forget about the air conditioning. Your fans are not working. You don’t have refrigerators on. You don’t even have any cold water to drink,” said Hussain, who described the electricity blackouts as continuously disruptive but especially concerning during summer months.
His family’s energy bill has since been slashed by about 80%, and they haven’t endured a power outage since. They now revel in a newfound “sense of safety,” said Hussain.
The VoA video mentions that Pakistan—as with many other countries—is in debt to the Chinese for those thermal power plants.
Many years ago Peter posted an analysis (Amory Lovins?) of how the established capital return model for thermal power plants were obsolete, in that they assumed future income from the new plant selling power would be reliable. That analysis was prescient, as power plants cannot pay off the debt to the investors if either the demand dropped (due to renewables) or the market rate for electricity dropped (due to renewables).