Ignoring solar and wind potential

Pakistan’s National Electricity Policy 2021 pledges that a “sustainable renewable energy market shall be developed, with a progressively increasing share in power generation as per the Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan (IGCEP) based on the least cost principle.” However, the latest IGCEP 2024-34 iteration, which outlines the country’s future energy generation strategy over a 10-year horizon to ensure reliable and sustainable power supply, does quite the opposite. It drastically slashes the share of cost-effective variable renewable energy (VRE) — solar and wind — in the total energy mix and declares expensive hydropower, nuclear and imported and Thar coal-based generation schemes as “committed” or “strategic” in complete disregard of the principle of the least cost. “The VRE share has been reduced to 13.3 per cent in the energy mix from the previously projected 29.6pc in IGCEP 2022-31 through a substantial decrease in the planned contribution of wind, solar and other VRE sources,” notes a briefing paper prepared by the Pakistan Renewable Energy Coalition (REC). Notably, the solar share, including net metering, is projected to drop to 10pc by 2034.