The NUST U.S.-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Energy (USPCAS-E) has organised a two-day National Energy Summit that brought together policymakers, regulators, industry leaders, investors, academics, and development partners to discuss a more flexible power grid, local manufacturing of solar and battery equipment, and climate resilience in industry. Addressing the summit, Federal Minister for Power Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari said local resources currently account for about 76 percent of grid generation, and that the government aims to raise this share to 94 percent by 2036 under the Integrated Energy Plan. Earlier remarks by the minister this year put the local share at 74 percent with a target above 96 percent, so the figures presented at the summit are slightly different from those he gave in the past.
The summit stressed the need to improve energy security, reduce reliance on imported energy, and modernise the power system. Its recommendations covered four areas: promoting local manufacturing of solar panels and batteries, expanding battery storage, revising grid regulations, and adopting time-based electricity tariffs. These themes are closely tied to how Pakistan’s electricity system has changed. Leghari said in August that the country no longer has a generation problem and faces a flexibility problem instead, meaning that abundant midday solar power cannot easily be moved to the evening peak. Battery storage is the main tool for closing that gap, since it stores surplus solar energy generated during the day and releases it when demand is highest.
Time-based tariffs were also part of the discussion, and they link directly to the grid flexibility problem. In August, Leghari told a conference that restrictions under the country’s International Monetary Fund programme were blocking a market-based tariff system that could lower power costs and speed the energy transition, according to Profit, because such pricing gives grid operators more room to integrate renewables. In July, he said the government had declared battery energy storage a strategic priority and formed a federal steering committee to prepare a national policy. The summit’s recommendation to revise grid regulations fits with these steps, and it points to rules that were written for a system based on large, centrally located power plants, not for one with a large amount of rooftop solar.
Local manufacturing of solar panels and batteries is the other main theme. Leghari has said that Pakistan’s energy future depends on local sun, local engineers, and local battery storage, and that the government wants to promote local battery assembly and manufacturing to reduce import dependence and create jobs. The summit statement does not say how much funding or what incentives would support local production, which companies are involved, or when any new factories would open. It also does not give a date for the Integrated Energy Plan’s release in full. USPCAS-E, which is based at the National University of Sciences and Technology and was set up with US funding to build energy education and research in Pakistan, hosted the event, and its recommendations will now depend on decisions by the government, regulators, and industry.
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