The Pulse | Economy | South Asia

Pakistan’s Solar Revolution is Reshaping its Power Sector

Solar power generation has expanded rapidly in recent years and has overtaken nuclear power generation for the first time.

Pakistan’s solar power generation has surpassed 20 percent of the country’s total electricity production. While this transition toward clean energy is a positive development, it is the outcome of an unplanned shift in the country’s energy landscape.

According to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) 2026, solar generation in Pakistan reached an estimated 36.3 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025. This accounts for roughly 21.6 percent of Pakistan’s total electricity generation after growing about 85 percent in a single year.

The WNISR report offers important background on this transformation. In Pakistan, solar-led power generation has not only expanded rapidly in recent years but has also overtaken nuclear power generation for the first time. The report further notes that Pakistan installed roughly twice as much solar capacity in five years as France managed in a decade.

Moreover, Pakistan imported more than 58 gigawatts (GW) of solar panels from China between the beginning of 2017 and mid-2026. Of this, around 40 GW arrived in just two and a half years, from 2024 to mid-2026. These imports over such a short period illustrate how quickly Chinese solar manufacturing found a major market in Pakistan amid falling panel prices and surging domestic electricity costs.

The surge has made Pakistan the second-largest single-country import market for Chinese solar panels, just behind the Netherlands. This data underscores the scale and speed of the change underway in the country.

Besides, the solar generation figures coming out of Pakistan are likely underestimations for several reasons.

A substantial amount of privately installed solar capacity across the country remains unregistered and does not pass through the state-controlled grid. In many cases, much of this capacity is installed on rooftops and industrial sites, where households and businesses generate and store power for their own use without becoming part of the national grid. This trend has largely been driven by high electricity tariffs, frequent load-shedding and the falling cost of Chinese solar panels. All of this has created a strong incentive for consumers to bypass the national grid system altogether.

While this shift is likely reducing the demand for grid-supplied electricity, it is impacting Pakistan’s power sector challenges and the country’s mounting capacity-related debt significantly.

For instance, as high-usage households, businesses, and........

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