DrBilal Tahir
Pakistan is dimming its lights again—this time by design. The government’s decision to enforce roughly 2.25 hours of daily outages during peak evening demand is being framed as a calculated move to prevent a tariff shock. On paper, the logic is defensible: generating electricity through expensive imported fuels during high-demand hours would push prices sharply upward. But when a country must choose between darkness and unaffordable power, it is not managing a fluctuation—it is confronting a structural fault line.
Call it what it is: a system under stress.
The immediate trigger is clear. Fuel constraints, worsened by disruptions in liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies amid global tensions, have tightened Pakistan’s already fragile energy balance. For years, the country has leaned heavily on imported fuels to bridge its energy gap. That dependence now stands exposed. When supply chains falter, the grid does not merely strain—it reveals how little control Pakistan has over its own energy security. Compounding this is a familiar seasonal reality: reduced hydropower generation and a sharp surge in evening demand. The system, officials insist, can meet total demand—but only at a cost that would ripple through the economy. Running plants on furnace oil or high-cost imports during peak hours could push tariffs up by Rs5 to Rs6 per unit. Faced with that prospect, the state has opted for controlled outages, limiting the increase to a more manageable range.
So demand is curtailed to protect prices.
This is the essence of the so-called “Peak Relief Strategy.” It is scheduled, targeted, and, in theory, rational. Yet for households enduring long, humid evenings, for students studying under dim backup lights, and for small businesses watching revenues shrink, the distinction between strategy and load-shedding is academic. An outage—planned or otherwise—still carries a cost. The economy slows, productivity dips, and daily life absorbs the impact in quiet but significant ways. But the deeper problem lies beyond this immediate policy choice. Pakistan’s energy crisis is not cyclical; it is systemic. It is rooted in how electricity is generated, transmitted, priced, and consumed—and in how policy reacts to stress rather than anticipates it. At its core is a mismatch—between when energy is available and when it is needed most. Daytime capacity often sits underutilized, while evening peaks strain the system to its limits. In physics, inefficiency always carries a cost—and Pakistan’s grid is paying it through losses, volatility, and repeated crises. Transmission bottlenecks, line losses, and uneven consumption patterns turn manageable fluctuations into persistent instability.
Yet the same logic that explains the problem also points toward solutions. Start with the most underutilized asset in Pakistan’s energy landscape: sunlight. The country lies within a high solar irradiance zone, receiving abundant sunlight for most of the year. This is not a marginal advantage; it is a structural opportunity. Distributed solar—particularly rooftop systems—can significantly reduce pressure on the grid during peak hours. Every kilowatt generated at the point of consumption is a kilowatt the system does not have to produce, transmit, and subsidize.
What is missing is policy consistency. Net metering, once a promising driver of decentralized generation, has been clouded by regulatory uncertainty. Without clear incentives and long-term signals, adoption remains slower than it should be. Then there is storage—the critical piece often overlooked. Renewable energy’s intermittency is frequently cited as a limitation, but the real issue is not variability; it is the absence of systems to manage it. Battery storage allows energy generated during the day to be used when demand peaks in the evening. In practical terms, it bridges the gap between supply and demand. Without storage, renewable expansion remains incomplete; with it, the entire equation shifts. Demand, too, must be engineered. Peak hours are not inevitable—they are behavioral. Through time-of-use tariffs, efficient appliances, and smarter industrial scheduling, demand can be redistributed. Flattening the peak does not require reducing overall consumption; it requires using energy more intelligently. This is where technology and policy must converge.
Fuel diversification is equally critical. Pakistan’s dependence on imported LNG and furnace oil is not only costly but strategically fragile, exposing the economy to external shocks. Meanwhile, indigenous resources—hydropower, wind, and solar—remain underutilized. Short-term fixes, such as diverting local gas, may ease pressure but fail to alter the long-term trajectory. Compounding this is the persistent burden of circular debt—the sector’s silent destabilizer. When payments stall and losses go unchecked, investment collapses and efficiency becomes irrelevant. No system can improve on a weak financial foundation. There is also an issue of equity. Uneven load management across regions risks deepening perceptions of unfair burden-sharing. Ultimately, controlled outages may limit tariffs, but they reflect a reactive system—one that manages crisis rather than building resilience.
Pakistan does not need better load-shedding. It needs a different energy logic. Rewiring the grid is not a slogan—it is a necessity. It means shifting from centralized, fuel-dependent generation to distributed, renewable systems. It means investing in storage, modernizing transmission, and aligning pricing with efficiency. It means designing an energy system that anticipates demand rather than scrambling to contain it.
There are no quick fixes. But there is a clear direction. The present crisis offers clarity. It exposes trade-offs, sharpens choices, and underscores the cost of inaction. Pakistan can continue to manage scarcity—or it can build a system that is stable, sustainable, and secure. Because the real question is no longer whether the lights can be kept on tonight.
It is whether the country is willing to build a system that keeps them on—every night.
The writer is Director Quality Enhancement Cell at Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering & Information Technology (KFUEIT), Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan
