PRIME Minister Shehbaz Sharif has assured the public that his government would never discourage Pakistan’s ‘solarisation boom’. He should pardon those who have been following the trajectory of Pakistan’s solar policies for taking that promise with a pinch of salt. After all, the strategy for managing Pakistani households’ seemingly insatiable appetite for solar energy, and the consequences this shift has triggered for those who cannot afford to adopt solar yet, has been anything but well-thought-out. A number of drastic steps have been proposed over the past few months which could significantly alter the economics of solar power for end users, yet their implementation is surrounded by uncertainty. A recent decision to slash solar buyback rates from Rs27 to Rs10 per unit, introduce net billing instead of net-metering, and impose limits on the size of solar systems that can be installed by households invited a backlash, following which implementation was paused. More recently, in its federal budget for 2025-26, the government proposed an 18pc tax on solar panels but later revised it to 10pc for the next fiscal year. The flip-flopping signals that the government itself is uncertain about the path forward.

There is no doubt that Pakistan can reap significant environmental and economic benefits from its solar revolution. At the same time, however, it cannot abandon the commitments it has made to power generation and distribution companies. There are tough choices to be made so that those who cannot disconnect from the grid completely do not end up shouldering the entire burden of capacity payments to power companies. Sweeping promises such as the one made by the prime minister may, in fact, add to the problem by increasing public suspicions about the policymakers’ intentions, making implementation far more politically costly than it has to be. Admittedly, this is a mess of our political leadership’s making, but it is still one that needs to be sorted out.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2025