Are Chinese solar panels the answer for Global South, or do costs not add up?
Advertisement
An increasing flow of cheap Chinese solar panels to the South Asian nation is undercutting demand for power from coal-fired plants that China helped finance and leading to a vicious cycle of stranded assets, according to a report by Renewables First, a think tank based in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
'China's solar panels are outcompeting China's power plants,' said Muhammad Basit Ghauri, lead author of the report. 'What we are seeing is an unintentional but profound strategic contradiction. And Pakistan is ground zero for this global experiment in energy disruption.'
Pakistan had witnessed a rapid transition to 'distributed' solar power generation on people's rooftops over the past five years, with 39 gigawatts of solar panels imported over that time, mostly from China, the report said, adding that was roughly the equivalent of three-quarters of Pakistan's total installed power generation capacity.
With a zero tax rate for solar power imports, Pakistan has emerged as the second-largest destination for Chinese solar panels, behind only Brazil.
Advertisement
According to data from the Pakistani government's Finance Division, thermal power generation accounted for 59.4 per cent of the country's installed capacity at the end of March last year, followed by hydroelectricity on 25.4 per cent, nuclear on 8.4 per cent and renewables on 6.8 per cent.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong taxis need to shift gear so that every cab is ‘premium'
Hong Kong's taxi industry is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Moves to legitimise and regulate ride-hailing firms while improving services offered by cabbies are long overdue. But members of the influential taxi trade continue to push for privileges and block the path to progress. The government must take the handbrake off – and accelerate. Officials have had to go to extraordinary lengths to modernise the industry and lift standards. Taxis are to be required to offer at least two forms of digital payment and install cameras and devices to record their trips. There is a new disciplinary system and fleets of new 'premium' taxis have hit the streets. None of this should have been necessary. The taxi industry should have eagerly embraced technology and offered excellent service. That is the best way of competing with popular ride-hailing firms. The most important requirement is to guarantee passenger safety. The death of a tourist from the Philippines this month, knocked down by a 'dizzy' 80-year-old taxi driver, has renewed long-standing concerns about the roadworthiness of elderly cabbies.
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Trump-Putin summit: was it a win for Russia or the US?
The highly anticipated US-Russia presidential summit in Alaska had raised hopes for progress on ending the Ukraine war, but instead left more questions than answers Advertisement Still, observers viewed Vladimir Putin's diplomatic return to US soil – his first in a decade – as a symbolic win for Moscow. The nearly three-hour talks, which both Putin and Donald Trump described as 'productive', signalled a potential thaw in the fraught US-Russia relationship despite concluding without a ceasefire agreement, they said. Meanwhile, as China offered a cautious endorsement of the summit, Chinese and Russian analysts warned that Beijing could face a strategic dilemma , wary of how the limited détente might reshape the US-China-Russia power triangle. With Ukraine and Europe notably absent from the discussions, Trump's post-summit remarks about territorial swaps and US security guarantees sparked confusion over whether he had tacitly accepted Russia's retention of occupied territories amid the prolonged war. Advertisement There was a joint press appearance after the meeting, but neither Trump nor Putin announced concrete outcomes or details on what they had agreed on. They also did not take any questions from reporters. Putin, who was the first to speak, described the US and Russia as 'close neighbours'. He said he hoped 'the agreement that we've reached together' would be seen 'constructively' by Kyiv and European capitals and 'they won't throw a wrench in the works'.
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Will Trump-Putin thaw in Alaska leave China facing a 3-way dilemma?
The highly anticipated US-Russia presidential summit in Alaska had raised hopes for progress on ending the Ukraine war, but instead left more questions than answers Still, observers viewed Vladimir Putin's diplomatic return to US soil – his first in a decade – as a symbolic win for Moscow. The nearly three-hour talks, which both Putin and Donald Trump described as 'productive', signalled a potential thaw in the fraught US-Russia relationship despite concluding without a ceasefire agreement, they said. Meanwhile, as China offered a cautious endorsement of the summit, Chinese and Russian analysts warned that Beijing could face a strategic dilemma , wary of how the limited détente might reshape the US-China-Russia power triangle. With Ukraine and Europe notably absent from the discussions, Trump's post-summit remarks about territorial swaps and US security guarantees sparked confusion over whether he had tacitly accepted Russia's retention of occupied territories amid the prolonged war. There was a joint press appearance after the meeting, but neither Trump nor Putin announced concrete outcomes or details on what they had agreed on. They also did not take any questions from reporters. Putin, who was the first to speak, described the US and Russia as 'close neighbours'. He said he hoped 'the agreement that we've reached together' would be seen 'constructively' by Kyiv and European capitals and 'they won't throw a wrench in the works'.
