The Solar Divide: Who’s Left Behind as Pakistan’s Energy Revolution Unfolds

Pakistan’s solar market is booming — but not for everyone. Businesses are surging ahead, unaffected by the policy shift that made solar harder for households. Working families, priced out and left behind, are still waiting. ISLAMABAD — Every month, Awais waits. He waits for the electricity bill to arrive, checks the number, and starts calculating. In summer, when the air conditioner runs and the water motor labors through the heat, the bill climbs to 15,000 rupees. It does not arrive as a surprise. It arrives as a confirmation of something he already knows that energy in Pakistan today costs more than many households can comfortably pay. Awais works at a private company in Sahiwal. He has done his homework on what a rooftop solar system costs, roughly what it saves, and how long it takes to recover the investment. A modest residential system runs between 700,000 and 900,000 rupees where the math works but the money does not. “The biggest hurdle is the very high initial cost,” he says. “The investment takes a long time to recover.” Not far away, in the factories and commercial strips, businesses have been moving in the opposite direction. Electricity costs that once consumed up to 40% of total operating expenses have been cut to near zero through solar. Pakistan now ranks among the top solar markets globally, with at least 40 gigawatts of installed capacity and a market growing at 10 to 15% annually. The numbers point upward. But the surge is not reaching everyone. The Industrial Surge Muhammad Ali Qasim founded Fivo Energy in Lahore in 2018 and has been watching the market evolve ever since. He describes 2023 as the turning point. “Something happened in 2023 where businessmen understood that they should shift to solar,” he says. “When they shifted, their competitors who maybe didn’t have knowledge about solar were forced to follow, because the early adopters were offering prices that the others couldn’t match.” Once one business in a sector made