ISLAMABAD — Muhammad Zia ur Rahman got the idea to install solar panels on his house after he saw some going up on a mosque in his neighborhood in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital city. The mosque had been struggling to afford rising electricity prices to keep fans going in the country's longer and more frequent heat waves, so community members pooled money to buy a rooftop solar system. It brought monthly bills down to almost zero.
When Zia saw the economic difference solar energy could make, installing panels at his own home felt like a no-brainer. So, in mid-2021, he covered his rooftop garden in shiny panels — hoping the strong Pakistani sun would enable him to earn back his initial investment and eventually provide some relief from rising electricity costs. "We made a conscious decision," says Zia, 75, who is retired from a career in marketing and supply chain. "To save on the electricity bill, we should go for solar."
Over the last four years, nearly everyone on his tree-lined street in Pakistan's capital has followed suit. Solar panels have popped up on rooftops all around him. "I have them in front of my house, right and left — everywhere," Zia says.
Pakistan is in the midst of a solar boom that has rapidly turned the country into one of the world's largest new adopters of this renewable energy source, according to data from the global energy think tank Ember. This solar transition is driven by demand from frustrated Pakistani citizens who have seen electricity prices skyrocket in recent years.
The boom has materialized thanks to an overabundance of solar panels available from neighboring China, which has been steadily ramping up its production of solar technology.
The speed of solar adoption in Pakistan has been unprecedented, says Jan Rosenow, leader of the energy program at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. "The scale of solar being deployed in such a short period of time has not been seen, I think, anywhere ever before."
This became apparent last year, when solar imports to Pakistan more than tripled from just one year earlier, approaching $2.1 billion, according to data from Renewables First, an energy and environment think tank in Islamabad. The boom looks set to continue, since Pakistan has already imported 80% of last year's milestone amount during the first nine months of 2025.
Affordable, reliable solar fills a gap
Pakistan's solar boom grows out of a decades-long power sector crisis, which has caused many Pakistanis to lose faith in the state's ability to consistently provide reliable electricity.
The country has struggled to maintain its aging grid. And its outdated infrastructure and faulty distribution systems are blamed for power outages and even countrywide blackouts. These issues persist as heat waves intensify — sometimes over 110 degrees Fahrenheit for days on end — which scientists say are likely the result of human-caused climate change.
Pakistan also has increasingly unaffordable electricity, with power prices more than doubling in the last three years. The price hikes have stemmed from fluctuations in global energy prices, the depreciation of Pakistan's currency and the government's rollback of energy subsidies, which previously made electricity more affordable. Pakistan made these subsidy reforms in recent years because of loan requirements from the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, which has lent Pakistan more than $10 billion in the past decade alone to keep its economy afloat.
Waqas Moosa, chairman of the Pakistan Solar Association, a trade group advocating for the adoption of solar technology, says these conditions pushed Pakistanis to take matters into their own hands. "Individuals have made this decision," he says. "So, it's like a democratization of solar."
Pakistan's solar boom started to take off in 2023 when the price of solar panels from China dropped by more than 40%, as China ramped up its exports. Pakistani importers saw the potential to make a profit and bought them up en masse, selling them across the country. The solar transition further sped up in 2024, as the price of Chinese solar panels dropped even more, flooding the market with technology that many Pakistanis couldn't previously afford.
Adnan Shams, an electrician in Islamabad, says he has experienced the boom firsthand as more people call on him for solar installation. Earlier this summer, he attended a solar training course at National Skills University Islamabad, where the instructor taught students how to install panels. "[Solar] is beneficial in the long run, which is why the work is increasing," he says.
The proliferation of cheaper and more reliable batteries, used to store solar energy and also imported from China, now looks set to advance solar adoption as customers look for additional ways to reduce their bills and ensure a steady electricity supply.
Solar adoption reveals cracks in Pakistan's power system
But the millions of new solar users — like Zia and his neighbors — are having an impact on the financing of Pakistan's power sector.
That's because of reforms that date back to the 1990s. Pakistan was then struggling to produce enough electricity for its growing population. So the country set up long-term contracts to pay independent companies to produce electricity, regardless of how much is used.
These days, people are using less power from the Pakistani grid to avoid high electricity bills, says Rabia Babar, data manager at Renewables First. "The electricity cost in the country has increased so people are in conservation mode. They use less electricity to save [on] their electricity bills," she says.
As more Pakistanis add solar, demand for electricity from the grid has gone down, even though many still rely on the grid, especially at night.
As a result of this lessening demand and the government's continued obligation to independent power producers, "the same number of payments needs to be made by a lesser number of consumers," says Pakistan's energy minister, Awais Leghari.
He says the government is troubleshooting how to bring more industrial customers onto the grid to offset residential customers who are switching over to solar, while planning targeted subsidies for low-income users. "Our challenge is to get the demand to go up," he says.
Pakistan's capacity to generate electricity has also increased, with some residential and industrial solar producers selling the energy they make back to the grid by using net metering.
The Pakistani government has already taken several steps to regulate the residential solar industry, including lowering the rate it pays for electricity that household solar setups produce.
In June, the government also announced a 10% tax on imported solar panels into Pakistan — almost all of which come from China.
Khalid Waleed, an energy economist at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad, says any tax on solar panels could deter Pakistanis who are on the brink of being able to afford this technology. He says the people who might get priced out of buying solar are the same ones who will have to bear the brunt of already rising electricity costs. "Those who cannot afford [solar], for them, electricity prices are going up and will go up in the future," he says.
Pakistanis around the country are already weighing the benefits of investing in solar. Dilawar Khan, who does small jobs for a local business and whose wife works as a housekeeper, says he is saving to buy a single solar panel. That would help run the air cooler that sits in the courtyard of his house. A cheaper alternative to air conditioning and widely used in Pakistan, it's a bulky box filled with ice or water and a fan inside to blow that liquid out as cool air. Several neighbors in the village where he lives on the edge of Islamabad have purchased solar panels. They have set the panels up on the ground in the courtyard of their houses to keep a fan or light running during daily power cuts, which can sometimes last for hours.
Khan says as soon as he can gather the funds, he will join them. "Those who have solar, they are using it, and they have electricity," he says. "It should be in every home."
As for Zia, who installed solar panels on his rooftop garden four years ago, he is now preparing to buy a second set for his house to boost his electricity yield, along with batteries that can store the energy he produces. "Electricity costs have gone up so much," he says. "It will save me money."
Betsy Joles is a journalist based in Pakistan.
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