Pakistan no longer faces power generation shortage, says power minister

Pakistan no longer faces an electricity generation shortage but must invest in battery storage and grid flexibility to manage surplus solar power and meet rising evening demand, Federal Minister for Energy (Power Division), Sardar Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari, said on Tuesday.

“Let me be very direct about where we stand. Pakistan does not have a generation problem anymore… What we have is a flexibility problem. The inability to move abundant midday solar energy into the evening peak,” said Leghari while addressing the Solar Storage Flexibility 2026 (SSF26) Conference in Islamabad.

He said that the ongoing conflict between Iran and the United States has reminded us how external events shake energy markets.

“Oil price volatility, shipping risk through the Strait of Hormuz and uncertainty in the global fuel markets are not abstract concerns for policymakers in Washington or Riyadh.

“For a country like Pakistan, which still imports the bulk of the fuel that runs a large share of our thermal fleet, they are a direct threat to our fiscal stability and our people’s cost of living.”

He said that Pakistan went through a stress test in April when RLNG supplies from Qatar were disrupted, and the country reverted to load shedding during the night time, but had adequate power during the daytime due to solarisation.

“So when we talk of battery energy storage systems today, we are not simply talking about a grid balancing technology. We are talking about insulating Pakistan’s economy from a volatile world,” he said.

Leghari said that the share of renewables in Pakistan’s electricity mix has reached 55%. “Our target under this government is to take this figure to 90% clean energy by 2035,” he said.

The minister said that storage converts an ambitious target into “an operable, bankable and very deliverable plan”.

“Battery storage allows the grid operators the necessary flexibility to integrate a high share of renewables through the various use cases it offers. Put simply, without storage our solar success risks becoming a curtailment problem. With storage it becomes a national asset,” he said.

The minister said that the government wants to see local assembly of battery packs, not just installing imported ones.

To boost battery manufacturing in Pakistan, Leghari said that the Ministry of Industries is in the process of formulating the best local manufacturing policy, which will soon be finalised and will incentivise local production.

“We have established a National Steering Committee on Battery Energy Storage Systems, bringing together the regulators, the transmission and distribution companies and technical experts to give the sector coordinated national direction,” he said.