For decades, Pakistan had a simple explanation for its electricity crisis: we did not have enough electricity.

There was load-shedding, factories running generators, and summer evenings spent waiting for fans to start turning again. The solution seemed equally simple: build power plants.

And Pakistan did. Coal, LNG, gas, nuclear and hydropower capacity was added, independent power producers were contracted and transmission projects undertaken.

Pakistan eventually built enough generation capacity to eliminate the simple explanation for load-shedding.

Yet load-shedding did not disappear.

That may be the clearest sign of what went wrong. Pakistan can now have idle power plants and dark homes at the same time. According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2025-26, installed generation capacity stood at 49,651 MW at the end of March 2026. Yet NEPRA reported that thermal plants operated at an average utilisation of only 42.5 per cent during FY2024-25. Of that year’s Rs2.943 trillion power purchase cost, excluding imports from Iran, 61 per cent was capacity payments rather than energy.

A solar consumer may buy fewer units from a DISCO but still expects power at night, in cloudy weather or when consumption exceeds self-generation.

A solar consumer may buy fewer units from a DISCO but still expects power at night, in cloudy weather or when consumption exceeds self-generation.

The problem is no longer how many power plants Pakistan has. It is whether electricity can be generated economically, transmitted where it is needed, distributed efficiently, paid for and afforded.

NEPRA’s own assessment of distribution companies makes the contradiction explicit. It found that several DISCOs allocated sufficient electricity failed to use their full quota and resorted to load-shedding anyway. It has also repeatedly challenged the practice of cutting supply to feeders on the basis of aggregate technical and commercial losses, effectively punishing paying........

© Daily Times