Is Pakistan awash with solar panels?

From pv magazine 10/24 Pakistan is awash with solar panels. In August 2024, BloombergNEF revealed Pakistan had imported 13 GW of Chinese modules in the first six months of the year. One project developer told pv magazine that there is so much oversupply, modules are “lying on the road.”

Are Chinese solar panels a solution to Pakistan's rising electricity prices?

Pakistan's skyrocketing electricity prices have pushed cash-strapped households and businesses to find relief from rising costs and rolling blackouts by using low-cost Chinese solar panels.

Will Pakistan give away free solar panels?

Despite the federal government’s concern about its power network, the provincial government of Punjab, home to more than half of Pakistan’s 240mn population, announced in July that it would give away free or heavily subsidised solar panels for millions of citizens struggling with rising electricity bills.

Are solar panels 'unaffordable' in Pakistan?

But the mass adoption of solar panels also risked making the power provided by the Pakistani grid “unaffordable”, Awais Leghari, the energy minister, told the Financial Times. “Demand is shrinking off the grid. That’s a big concern for us.”

Can solar modules be imported into Pakistan?

Distributors like Innovo couldn’t import solar modules for around nine months. Some modules did enter the country despite import restrictions. Importing goods in Pakistan normally requires a letter of credit (LC), a type of assurance for foreign transactions issued by the importer’s bank.

Are solar panels destroying Pakistan's electricity market?

Solar panels flooded into Pakistan during the first half of 2024 and oversupply has wiped out module margins. Solar developers want greater liberalization of the nation’s electricity market but the government is concerned that moving too quickly could place more pressure on utilities already burdened by high capacity payments.