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Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

reuters.com

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Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#51

Post by elzbardico »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #34
saidinesh5 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing: fewer people buying from the power companies/grid => the fixed costs of these companies are pushed onto the poorer customers, who already couldn't afford much.

This is correct. But there is a bit more. Almost all power plants in Pakistan are built with state-backed dollar-denominated loans (reason govt incompetence+corruption). This means if grid demand goes down, power plants don't go out of business like they would in a market based system. Instead, they keep collecting dollar-denominated interest paid by the state, even if they produce zero power. The state mitigates thi…

The reason power plants in Pakistan probably require this kind of financing is because Pakistan doesn't have the industrial capability to make the equipment that you need to build a power plant, so, dollars are a requirement.

Power companies in Pakistan also don't have easy access to international money markets, and thus, it makes sense for the government to back those strong currency loans as a subsidy on infrastructure.

This is not exclusive to Pakistan, this is the routine of infrastructure financing on developing countries. J.P. Morgan is not really eager to lend money for PakiPower Incorporated, but it is willing to lend to the government.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#52

Post by seanmcdirmid »

andor wrote: post #49
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don’t have the capital to be responsible for their own electricity generation, except the rich.

It's really not expensive anymore. There's a Black Friday deal on amazon.de for an entry-level Anker Solix system with 4x500W panels and a 2.6 kWh battery. 1200 EUR. For those that don't have the cash, financing is available. Have you read this, about SunKing and SunCulture in Africa, recently posted on HN: https://climatedrift.substack.com/p/why-solarpunk-is-already... Their smallest solar products are small lantern…

Oh I’m sure, Pakistan has alot of trade with China also so it’s probably cheaper than in the west. But it would still be expensive for the poorer Pakistanis, and would require some investment, they simply have less ability to do that than a richer middle class Pakistani, so the poor pay the poor tax because they can’t invest capital to bring their costs down.

Low Chinese prices are making it more and more possible though. I hope the future will be really different.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#53

Post by PunchyHamster »

pfdietz wrote: post #3

What this shows is solar is increasingly threatening the electric utility business model. Even without net metering, demand destruction will cause the traditional model to stop working.

if the same solar also had enough battery capacity, sure. But they do not, they still need to buy at out of solar peak and that just causes problems for both sides.

I think grid should start moving into selling storage as a service. Just put a bunch of bulk storage at every transformer station and buy solar from consumers at solar peak, sell them back say 80% of it (or whatever margin is required to pay for it) off peak.

That way utility no longer have to haul megawatts all the way from the power plant all the time, any peak can be hauled from the batteries and let the other types of power plant more time to spool up, and the grid is more resilient to outages (assuming you were lucky and battery bank local to you still had some charge

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#54

Post by toomuchtodo »

neebz wrote: post #30

We switched to solar in 2021 expecting a 3.5-year payback. Electricity prices rose so fast that we recovered the investment in under two years. Also the national grid is notorious for it's frequent blackouts (load-shedding) since the early ’90s. Solar allowed us to have uninterrupted supply in the mornings and longer backups during night.

Rough location (if you feel comfortable sharing ground truth)?

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#55

Post by toomuchtodo »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #53
pfdietz wrote: post #3

What this shows is solar is increasingly threatening the electric utility business model. Even without net metering, demand destruction will cause the traditional model to stop working.

if the same solar also had enough battery capacity, sure. But they do not, they still need to buy at out of solar peak and that just causes problems for both sides. I think grid should start moving into selling storage as a service. Just put a bunch of bulk storage at every transformer station and buy solar from consumers at solar peak, sell them back say 80% of it (or whatever margin is required to pay for it) off p…

LFP chemistries are approaching ~$50/kWh, and CATL's sodium chemistry is supposed to be ~$40/kWh (per CATL); soon it will be more expensive to ship the battery storage than the storage itself.

"Watershed moment:" Big battery storage prices hit record low in China auction - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504630 - July 2025 (4 comments)

IEA: The battery industry has entered a new phase - https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-battery-industry-has-en... - March 5th, 2025

Naxtra Battery Breakthrough & Dual-Power Architecture: CATL Pioneers the Multi-Power Era - https://www.catl.com/en/news/6401.html - April 21st, 2025

China Already Makes as Many Batteries as the Entire World Wants - https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-transport/china-alread... - April 19th, 2024

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#56

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

hamdingers wrote: post #16
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #9

How many years before this happens in parts of the United States?

In California, grid-tied rooftop solar was putting energy prices into the negative so often that they reconfigured the NEM to discourage export back to the grid and encourage battery storage.

And it's messing with our utilities in BC because we were buying the daytime oversupply in California and selling the hydro generated power back at night. They've had to adjust plans as battery storage comes online.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#57

Post by k1musab1 »

elzbardico wrote: post #47
riku_iki wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rich people just buying rooftop solar systems, which exacerbated the grid problems even more. how it exacerbated problems exactly?..

Because storage is incredibly expensive and thus, for every GW of installed solar capacity you need and an exact another GW reserve capacity from other sources for the rare times when the sun doesn't shine (like, for example, during the night or during large spells of bad weather). Besides being intermittent, solar and wind are not really dispatchable, that is, the grid operator doesn't have many levers to control th…

This exact issue lead me to follow the grid orchestration research out of the Oak Ridge Laboratory. The building blocks already exist to enable this. An interconnected smart network of renewables can become a stabilizing force in the overall grid. Off-peak storage would still be required, but would no longer need to be "stabilizing" (turbine or other similar generator), and can be simple batteries.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#58

Post by londons_explore »

elzbardico wrote: post #47
riku_iki wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rich people just buying rooftop solar systems, which exacerbated the grid problems even more. how it exacerbated problems exactly?..

Because storage is incredibly expensive and thus, for every GW of installed solar capacity you need and an exact another GW reserve capacity from other sources for the rare times when the sun doesn't shine (like, for example, during the night or during large spells of bad weather). Besides being intermittent, solar and wind are not really dispatchable, that is, the grid operator doesn't have many levers to control th…

All these problems become solved if you have realtime market pricing.

Nobody would bother to install rooftop solar if daytime power was super cheap on every sunny day, yet expensive at night when their solar isn't working.

Re: Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year

#60

Post by UltraSane »

peppersghost93 wrote: post #43
UltraSane wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar panels are cheap but batteries are very expensive.

They can be depending on your needs. Lithium iron phosphate batteries are pretty cheap for their capacity. If you build your own power station with them you'd be surprised how far your money goes.

It is much more expensive that just buying electricity from the grid at night.
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