Solar Energy: Lessons From The Neighbourhood
Whatever be the state of our relations with the next-door neighbour Pakistan – the bitterness was much in evidence when our cricketers refused to shake hands with the Pakistani players at the recently held Asia Cup finals – we should for our own benefit keep ourselves informed about any success stories there inviting global attention. One example is the UK based energy thinktank Ember in its midyear global electricity insights making a special reference to Pakistan for its striking progress in building solar power capacity.
The Ember report says, among all countries, Pakistan saw solar recording the “largest” rise in its share of total electricity generation from 4.4 per cent in the first half of 2021 to 21.99 per cent at this year’s June end. Thanks to principally rapidly growing installation of solar network on the rooftop of private houses and business establishments, this stream of renewable energy could make such impressive progress in Pakistan.
A combination of high grid electricity charges and a raft of incentives for rooftop solar system installation goes on encouraging more and more families and small to medium businesses to use the rooftop and sunrays that fall on it to generate power. The incentives include exempting solar panels from sales tax duty free import of batteries and solar panels.
What is more, provinces like Sindh and Punjab either offer free or at highly subsidised rates solar equipment to the economically disadvantaged. Households and small businesses are given interest free bank loans for installation of solar systems at building top. What is more, electricity that remains surplus after own use is allowed for release on national grid at a fixed rate. But as there is now dilution of procurement rate of surplus rooftop solar power, the payback period of new installation has gotten extended. That, however, has not become a deterrent to go for rooftop based solar electricity.
Like much of India, Pakistan has the nature’s gift of high solar insolation over a great number of days in a year, particularly in Sindh, Punjab and Baluchistan. The World Bank has estimated the country’s solar power potential at 40 GW facilitated by an average 8 to 10 hours of strong daily sunlight in most parts of the country. The impressive growth in solar capacity is a statement that government policies are rightly framed and the people have found an escape route from paying exorbitant prices for grid power.
At the same time, the country will have to sufficiently strengthen the transmission infrastructure to manage well the power flowing from solar and wind. While the focus remains on building new capacity of solar energy through a combination of micro units and industry size complexes, Pakistan will also be required to exploit its wind resource to cut its dependence on energy derived from fossil fuels. Some studies suggest approximately 3 per cent of Pakistan’s land can generate about 132 GW of wind power, based on 5 MW per square km.
Pakistan by all accounts is a nuisance state for us, especially for harbouring terrorists and allowing them to carry out subversive acts here. But any time that country takes steps to control pollution, at this point the reference is promotion of environment friendly renewable energy, we have reasons to feel happy. Let this be explained. Pollutants are no respecter of borders as these travel across national boundaries thousands of miles through natural pathways. India shares a 3,323 km border with Pakistan involving Rajasthan, Punjab, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. So less the emission of carbon (CO2) in Pakistan, better it is for the Indian citizens of the border states and Union Territories and beyond.
In India too, the sun shines bright over most parts of the country with an average 300 sunny days a year, with the caveat that the number of sunny hours a day in many regions is falling. Whatever that is, India having made a commitment to become a net zero emissions entity by 2070 at COP 26 summit in 2021, it is doubling down on building non-fossil fuels-based electricity generation capacity. As of September 2025, such capacity was 247.30 GW, of which renewable energy constituted 233.99 GW. Significantly, the country’s non-fossil fuels pivoted power capacity has now over half the share of total installed capacity of 484.82 GW. In the power basket, solar continues to make the most impressive progress in terms of capacity creation.
At 127.33 GW capacity, with additions of 4,202.16 MW in September, India is ranked third in world ranking of solar power producer. In India’s target of building renewable energy capacity of 500 GW by 2030, solar power will likely have a share of more than a half. But what about rooftop solar structure in residential buildings and small business establishments! Though this happened not a moment too soon, New Delhi introduced PM Surya Ghar: Muft Yojana in February 2024 to provide incentives by way of subsidising the cost of solar panels of up to 40 per cent along with free electricity to encourage households to use their rooftop for solar power generation.
As claimed by the government, the programme involving an investment of ₹75,000 crore is expected to benefit 10 million households who will be beneficiary of up to 300 units of free electricity every month. But to have a good scheme is not enough. This must be backed up by sustained campaign across the country to make people aware of the benefits that the Yojana yields.
Reports suggest the country has an estimated potential of 637 GW of residential rooftop solar capacity. Even if a third of that potential is brought into operation, the entire electricity requirements of the residential sector will be met. The challenge for the government and industry, therefore, is to build mass awareness that by installing rooftop solar structure not only will economic benefits accrue to households but by doing so will result in curbing CO2 emissions.
What will support mass building of rooftop solar structures is the rapid rate at which indigenous capacity of solar photovoltaic modules and solar PV cells is getting created in the country, thanks to supportive policies. According to an ICRA report, in both India has now export surpluses. However, the recent US tariffs has thrown challenges to exports.
