Pakistan experienced a documented decline in grid electricity demand in 2023 and 2024 byPakistan's solar panel imports reached approximately 17 gigawatts in 2024 alone

 

"Pakistan's farmers bought so many solar panels that the country's grid electricity demand fell for the first time in history.

Pakistan experienced a documented decline in grid electricity demand in 2023 and 2024 — an almost unprecedented event for a developing country with a growing population and economy, where electricity demand virtually always rises year over year. The cause was not economic contraction. It was millions of individual households and businesses installing rooftop and ground-mounted solar panels rapidly enough to materially reduce dependence on the national grid, in a phenomenon Pakistani energy analysts have called the solar boom nobody planned.

Pakistan's grid electricity prices rose sharply between 2022 and 2024, driven by currency devaluation that increased the cost of imported fuel for the country's gas and oil-fired power plants, combined with IMF-mandated subsidy reductions. Solar panel prices, meanwhile, fell to among the lowest in the world as Chinese manufacturing oversupply flooded global markets. The crossover point arrived with startling speed: by 2024, a Pakistani household or business could recoup the cost of a rooftop solar installation in under 2 years through avoided grid electricity costs, compared to typical payback periods of 7 to 10 years in wealthier countries with cheaper grid electricity.

Pakistan's solar panel imports reached approximately 17 gigawatts in 2024 alone — a volume that exceeded the country's entire previous installed solar capacity in a single year, almost entirely without government subsidy or formal grid-connected installation programmes. Pakistanis solved their own energy crisis from their rooftops, faster than their government could write a policy for it.

Source: National Electric Power Regulatory Authority Pakistan (NEPRA) & Pakistan Solar Association, 2024