By Wu Siya

 

BEIJING, Jun. 26 (China Economic Net)– "After the installation of solar panels, our [electricity] cost has been reduced to 30 percent," Imran Ali Gul, a hotel manager in Islamabad who has installed a 16kw system, told with satisfaction. "That's why we preferred to get the solar system installed."

 

 

Aamir Hussain, Chairman Pakistan Alternative Energy Association, indicated that Pakistan has purchased and installed solar panels of around 1800 megawatts last year, which was expected to jump to 3,000 megawatts this year due to the lower prices of the panels and increased customer demand. “Pakistan will be spending over 3.5 billion dollars this year on solar panels imports only as this doesn’t include import of batteries, inverters and other auxiliary items. Pakistan needs to follow consistent policies regarding renewable energy to meet its national and international obligations for the greenhouse gas emissions.”

 

According to the customs data, from January to April this year, China’s exports of photovoltaic modules, inverters and lithium batteries to Pakistan were worth 7.83 billion yuan, 779 million yuan and 330 million yuan, respectively, up 110%, 170% and 250% year-on-year, showing explosive growth, which is closely related to the fragile local electricity market.

 

Long-term power outages and large-scale blackouts, as well as relatively high electricity prices (about 17.5 cents/kWh), which exceeds India (10.3 cents), Bangladesh (8.6 cents) and Vietnam (7.2 cents), have forced Pakistani households and businesses to consider cheaper alternatives. As the cost of photovoltaic storage continues to decline, users could effectively reduce overall electricity costs by building their own PV storage. Therefore, installing a household storage system has become a “rigid demand” to ensure power supply as well as reduce costs, driving the mushrooming of Pakistan’s distributed storage market.

 

“Considering power outages in Pakistan, especially during the peak electricity consumption period in summer, we have great potential to develop household energy storage systems in the local area. Our small energy storage systems have several different capacities, such as 5 kWh and 10 kWh, to prepare for emergencies. In fact, diesel engines are widely used in Pakistan for power generation, but its cost is much higher than photovoltaics, not to mention the pollution they generate is harmful to the green transformation. With the combination of distributed PVs + inverters + storage systems, many families could abandon diesel engines, which is undoubtedly a win-win situation for our market expansion and Pakistan’s low-carbon goals," Richard Guo, President of Zonergy Solar Development, Pakistan, pointed out while taking an exclusive interview with the China Economic Net.

 

“Our model of source-grid-load-storage integration could undoubtedly be moved to Pakistan. Obviously, the general price of PV energy storage products may still be just at or just below the price range of local traditional energy, thus its attractiveness needs to be improved. As our products continue to reduce costs and increase efficiency, their attractiveness in Pakistan, South Asia and even the world will further increase,” Liu Yiyang, Deputy Secretary General of China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA), told CEN.

 

Statistic from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) showed that the Pakistan solar energy market size is expected to grow from 1.3 GW in 2023 to 9.77 GW by 2028, at a CAGR of 49.68 percent during the forecast period (2023-2028). “In addition to some Chinese companies starting to build large-scale centralized projects in Pakistan, more local people are also turning to household photovoltaics due to rising electricity prices for traditional energy. The combination of these two will further boost the vigorous development of local PV energy storage demand,” Liu added.