Pakistan’s solar boom is helping it save billions during the ongoing energy crisis

Over the past few years, Pakistan has adopted solar power at unprecedented rates. That’s helping cushion it from the effects of the war in Iran.

Karachi, 2025. [Photo: Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images]

Pakistan gets almost all its oil and gas from the Middle East, where U.S. and Israeli bombing of Iran have caused crude prices to blow past $150 a barrel and tankers can’t get through the Strait of Hormuz. But it has one edge in the crisis: a rapid, recent shift to solar power.

The country’s solar boom started in the wake of the Ukraine war, when Pakistan couldn’t afford to buy liquefied natural gas and that led to power outages. “It also led........

© Fast Company