Dasht, Balochistan, Pakistan – Karim Bakhsh leans towards a narrow channel of water, and guides it with his hands through shallow earthen channels towards a row of ripening watermelons.
In Dasht, a remote village in the southern part of Balochistan, Pakistan’s geographically largest province, Bakhsh’s crops had for years depended on a diesel-powered pump that drew water from the ground to irrigate his land.
This changed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which increased fuel prices, making it difficult for them to buy expensive diesel for their daily use. “It became impossible for me to run the pump on diesel every day,” he said.
His watermelons started spoiling due to less water. In some seasons, he reduced his cultivable land. He said, “If there is no water, there is no crop. And if there is no crop, there is no money.”
Then, in 2023, he made a decision that seemed risky at the time: He borrowed 300,000 Pakistani rupees ($1,075) from relatives and friends and installed a row of solar panels next to his farm.
Three years later, that gamble is paying off.
Amid the US-Israel war over Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz – through which 20 percent of oil and gas passes during peacetime – energy prices have soared around the world.
But Baksh is not worried. In the scorching heat of Dasht, where temperatures rise to 51 °C (124 °F) in the peak heat, his pump runs without diesel, and Bakhsh can irrigate his watermelons uninterrupted.
“Now, I don’t care if diesel prices will rise,” he says proudly, pointing towards the sun above. “As long as the sun is there, I can grow my own watermelons.”
a vulnerability and a shield
Bakhsh’s story highlights a huge vulnerability that Pakistan faced – and continues to face – and an unexpected advantage that could spare the country of 250 million people from some of the worst effects of a war on Iran.
Pakistan’s energy systems are highly interconnected with global supply routes, particularly the Strait of Hormuz: eighty percent of the country’s oil imports pass through the narrow but vital maritime chokepoint between Iran and Oman, while 99 percent of its LNG is sourced from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
A recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations said that Pakistan may face severe energy tensions if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for the next few months. Pakistan has limited storage capacity. The lack of gas supply to power plants and energy-intensive industries could soon lead to high power outages, factory closures and impacts on public services, transport and homes.
But a quiet change that has emerged on the rooftops and fields of Pakistan in recent years promises to partially save it from the crisis the world is facing.
Dozens of solar panels are changing the way energy is produced and used, giving Pakistan some respite from global energy disruptions.
A recent study from Renewables First and the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air sheds light on this change. Since 2018, Pakistan’s rooftop solar power boom has helped the country save more than $12 billion in fuel imports. At current market prices, this will also help the country save approximately $6.3 billion during the year.
This change is not built on any one national plan. Instead, it is the result of change by millions of individuals – farmers switching to diesel, businesses and homes looking for reliable electricity.
According to EMBER, an independent think tank, solar share in the country’s energy mix is set to increase from 2.9 percent in 2020 to 32.3 percent in 2025.
Rabia Babar, energy data manager at Renewables First, says this has helped reduce oil imports. “Pakistan’s solar revolution was not planned in Islamabad – it was built on rooftops,” she says. “As tensions remain high around the Strait of Hormuz, those panels are proving to be one of the country’s most effective energy security strategies.”
In big cities like Lahore or Karachi, rooftop solar panels are a common sight. For many middle-class families, the decision to opt for solar energy may be economic and practical. They can usually recover the installation cost in a few years. Then the electricity they get from the panels is free. Even better, they can feed excess solar power back into the national grid and earn money from it.
an unequal solution
According to a Gallup Pakistan survey conducted in 2023, about 15 percent – about 4 million – of homes in Pakistan use some form of solar panels.
By 2025, this number had increased even further: a household survey conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics revealed that 25 percent of households now use some form of solar energy.
Among them, according to government data, the number of net-metered households in the country has exceeded 280,000 consumers and is growing rapidly annually. Net metering allows households generating excess solar energy to send it back to the grid in exchange for credits that they can use when they need non-solar energy.
But analysts say it is mostly upper-middle class and upper class Pakistanis who are benefiting from it. The upfront cost of installing a solar system can range from several lakh rupees to more than a million rupees, depending on the size of the system and the batteries. Poor Pakistanis cannot afford this expense.
Once installed, consumers’ electricity bills suddenly reduce. Commercial and industrial users are the major beneficiaries, installing solar systems to protect themselves from power cuts. Lower cost of electricity makes industries more competitive internationally, especially for export-oriented industries.
Many farmers in Balochistan and Punjab who use solar-powered tube wells for irrigation get reliable water supply and avoid fluctuating diesel prices. In rural areas, where electricity supply is irregular, solar energy has become a source of survival rather than a luxury.
But poor people in urban and rural Pakistan risk being left behind.
Additionally, net-metering users use electricity from the grid at night or when there is no sunlight, but do not pay many of the fixed costs associated with the country’s electricity system. In effect, this means that non-solar users – including many poor Pakistanis – subsidize the limited use of the national grid by solar consumers.
Reports suggest that net-metering has already imposed a financial burden of 159 billion rupees ($570m) on grid consumers, which may increase to significant proportions in the future.
As a result, experts fear that Pakistan is producing a two-tier energy system – one for solar users and another for everyone else.
china factor
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), most of Pakistan’s solar panels are imported from China, which controls 80 percent of the industry’s global solar supply chain and produces the vast majority of solar wafers, cells and panels used globally.
Chinese lithium-ion batteries are simultaneously entering the Pakistani market. These batteries store electricity during the day for use at night. With the falling prices of Chinese lithium-ion batteries, more people are installing solar panels with batteries, further reducing their dependence on the national grid.
This dependence is prominently visible in Pakistan. Solar imports, mainly from China, collectively produced just below 1GW in 2018. By early 2026, this will increase to 51GW, making Pakistan one of the fastest growing solar markets globally.
“Pakistan’s solar energy boom is not Pakistan’s story. It is also China’s story,” says an electrical engineer at Turbet University, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. “These cheap Chinese solar panels are transforming the renewable energy sector in developing countries.”
Prices for Chinese solar panels have fallen significantly over the past decade due to heavy production and global competition. This oversupply has pushed prices down, especially since 2018.
In early 2010, the price of solar panels per watt was between 100 rupees ($0.35) and 120 rupees ($0.42) per watt. It has now fallen to around Rs 30 ($0.10) per watt. A home solar system of 3KW typically costs around 450,000 rupees ($1,610), while larger commercial systems cost up to 2,200,000 rupees ($7,874).
In Pakistan, this low cost of solar modules coincides with power shortages, rising tariffs and rising global oil prices following the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. This has made solar energy a viable option for homes, businesses and farmers who can afford the lump sum investment.
The price of lithium-ion batteries, especially those sourced from China, has also fallen, allowing households to store electricity even for nighttime use and reduce their dependence on unreliable grid power. According to the IEA, prices could fall by 20 percent in 2024 alone.
But the Turbet University engineer points out that Pakistan, by cutting its dependence on fuel imports, is creating a new form of dependence. “Without manufacturing solar panels, Pakistan is falling into a new form of dependence – this time on imported technology rather than imported fuel.”
Meanwhile, the Pakistan government has reversed its attitude towards solar energy.
It introduced a net-metering policy in 2015 to promote renewable energy and allow people to sell power to the grid at about 25 rupees ($0.090) per unit. The government also removed some taxes on solar panel imports, making solar systems cheaper. These policies helped the solar market grow rapidly.
However, the government later became concerned about the financial impact on the power sector as solar installations increased. Recently, the government reduced the buyback rate for new net-metering users to about 10 rupees ($0.036) per unit.
All this is a small compromise for farmers like Baksh.
Back in Dasht, he prepares his watermelons for transport, loading them onto pick-up cars and trucks to take them to nearby markets in the cities of Turbat and Gwadar.
Fuel prices fluctuate and transportation of these watermelons remains uncertain. But part of their work is stable and does not depend on global events.
He aspires to buy more solar panels, cultivate more watermelons next season and send them to the big markets of Quetta and Karachi – cities located far away.
For him, at least, he says: “No matter what, the water keeps flowing.”
