14 Comments

Glad to see you expanding into emerging economies in a greater way!

Expand full comment

A magnificent episode, more like this please!

Expand full comment

Hi David, this is a great and heartening interview. I edit The Mint Magazine www.themintmagazine.com and I was thinking of using AI to create a 1,000 word magazine to publish end of March in our next issue. I would explain where it came from and include a link to your interview. Would you be ok with that? Thanks Henry

Expand full comment

I think the solar panels I shop for are not so cheap. Maybe that’s due to shipping costs but my guess is it’s due to our economic system. Are there sanctions on Pakistan yet?

Expand full comment

I think it's mostly a matter of trade policy - Pakistan gets to import Chinese solar panels without paying big tariffs. We don't.

Expand full comment

I had no idea that renewable energy has advanced so much in Pakistan. Obviously local generation and consumption of solar energy in the tropics is the future for much of the third world. This topic got me to thinking about other unreported renewable stories in this part of the world. My understanding is that geothermal energy is well developed in Kenya. It would be nice to know more of the story.

Expand full comment

Wow, lot of potential in solar and hydel, with wind energy around the coastal areas.

Solar are handy, no need to get to the grid and function independently at far flung and isolated areas.

Punjab is leading in providing free solar system to the farmers, which needs to be imitated by other provinces as well.

Many of the IPPs have been negotiated to reduce the prices, which were very high due to corruption in all its probabilities. Remaining IPPs are also in line.

Two things to mention:

Firstly, it's the solar panels which are cheap not the support equipment, an average house still needs over a million rupees for routine requirement.

Secondly, govt has already shown signs of nervousness and news of taxing the buyback from the solar, whereas it was already getting electricity on much cheaper rates as compared to IPPs. 😁😁

And vdo says not compatible to Edge.

Is it so or some glitch with my browser?

Expand full comment

They're all good, but this episode is one of the best. Are there other places/sectors in the not-overdeveloped world that would be good to cover? Thanks for your work!

Expand full comment

I bloody loved this episode.. Would be great to hear how things are changing all over - for instance, I know India is trying to create its own solar panel industry - does this work? Are they anywhere near competing with China?

Expand full comment

Like Australia, inexpensive solar and relatively "expensive" electricity and net metering = boom in distributed solar. As far as I can tell, Pakistan residential rates are about $0.15/kWh so in line with a lot of world. Somewhere I read that the grid rates had to go up recently because billing demand went down due to solar while fixed costs stayed the same. Same cost-shift problem as everywhere with lots of net-meter solar.

Expand full comment

You said Pakistan has imported 30 gigawatts of solar panels in recent years, is that correct? Or do you mean 30 gigawatt hours of power generated by these imported panels.

If they imported 30 gigawatts of panels, which you say cost $0.10/watt, that is $3 billion of panels. If each panel were 400 watts that is 75 million panels. That would mean around 1 panel per family for the entire country which is a lot. Also 30 gigawatts of panels would harvest at least 30 terawatt hours of power which is about the same amount Pakistan gets from nuclear power (or hydro or oil or coal also).

On the other hand if you mean they have generated around 30 gigawatt hours of solar, then that could be done with 75,000 panels with each 400 watt panel harvesting around 400,000 watt hours (400 kwh) in one year.

Expand full comment

I had the same 'can't-be' jaw-drop. I betcha you're a fellow Boomer, grown up when nearly all of Asia were peasants in huts. Half still are. The other half are in this 10-year-old article saying 47% of them have fridges, 12% have a computer.

https://nedians.ning.com/profiles/blogs/pakistan-middle-class-jumps-to-55-of-population

If they have money for a fridge, they can scare up the same kind of money for a few panels, and a couple of car batteries, needed to keep that fridge from spoiling every few weeks during a long outage. Perfect economic sense.

Expand full comment

Yes, they did import 30 GW of panels. They are the number 1 importing country for Chinese panels. That’s what’s so amazing

Expand full comment

Hi, David— Thanks so much, delighted to learn about solar in Pakistan. My family lived in Karachi for some years while my stepfather trained men on managing the generators in the Indus River dam. So the issues sound familiar. The interview did not touch on the cronyism and corruption in the national government, which drove preferences for the type and scale and cost of new power supplies that could be skimmed. Solar is empowering people like farmers and small businesses to pay for electricity without bureaucracy. In my view, solar is also bringing new ideas about education and skills that can fit into a religiously conservative society and maybe open some doors, even to smart girls. Anyway, just wanted to say how much I appreciated the interview. Best, Mike

Expand full comment