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Time of India
3 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Pakistan's quiet solar rush puts pressure on national grid
Live Events The great Solar rush Disconnected from the public (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Pakistanis are increasingly ditching the national grid in favour of solar power, prompting a boom in rooftop panels and spooking a government weighed down by billions of dollars of power sector quiet energy revolution has spread from wealthy neighbourhoods to middle- and lower-income households as customers look to escape soaring electricity bills and prolonged power a cramped alley in Pakistan's megacity of Karachi, residents fighting the sweltering summer heat gather in Fareeda Saleem's modest home for something they never experienced before -- uninterrupted power."Solar makes life easier, but it's a hard choice for people like us," she says of the installation was cut from the grid last year for refusing to pay her bills in protest over enduring 18-hour power cuts.A widow and mother of two disabled children, she sold her jewellery -- a prized possession for women in Pakistan -- and borrowed money from relatives to buy two solar panels, a solar inverter and battery to store energy, for 180,000 rupees ($630).As temperatures pass 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), children duck under Saleem's door and gather around the breeze of her on poles above homes, solar panels have become a common sight across the country of 240 million people, with the installation cost typically recovered within two to five up less than two percent of the energy mix in 2020, solar power reached 10.3 percent in 2024, according to the global energy think tank in a remarkable acceleration, it more than doubled to 24 percent in the first five months of 2025, becoming the largest source of energy production for the first has edged past gas, coal and nuclear electricity sources, as well as hydropower which has seen hundreds of millions of dollars of investment over the past a result, Pakistan has unexpectedly surged towards its target of renewable energy, making up 60 percent of its energy mix by Jones, chief analyst at Ember, told AFP that Pakistan was "a leader in rooftop solar".Soaring fuel costs globally, coupled with demands from the International Monetary Fund to slash government subsidies, led successive administrations to repeatedly hike electricity have fluctuated since 2022 but peaked at a 155-percent increase and power bills sometimes outweigh the cost of rent."The great solar rush is not the result of any government's policy push," Muhammad Basit Ghauri, an energy transition expert at Renewables First, told AFP."Residents have taken the decision out of clear frustration over our classical power system, which is essentially based on a lot of inefficiencies."Pakistan sources most of its solar equipment from neighbouring China, where prices have dropped sharply, largely driven by overproduction and tech the fall in national grid consumers has crept up on an unprepared government burdened by $8 billion of power sector debt, analysts depends heavily on costly gas imports,which it sells at a loss to national energy is also tied into lengthy contracts with independent power producers, including some owned by China, for which it pays a fixed amount regardless of actual demand.A government report in March said the solar power increase has created a "disproportionate financial burden onto grid consumers, contributing to higher electricity tariffs and undermining the sustainability of the energy sector".Electricity sales dropped 2.8 percent year-on-year in June, marking a second consecutive year of month, the government imposed a new 10-percent tax on all imported solar, while the energy ministry has proposed slashing the rate at which it buys excess solar energy from consumers."The household solar boom was a response to a crisis, not the cause of it," said analyst Jones, warning of "substantial problems for the grid" including a surge during evenings when solar users who cannot store energy return to traditional national grid is losing paying customers like businessman Arsalan Arif.A third of his income was spent on electricity bills at his Karachi home until he bought a 10-kilowatt solar panel for around 1.4 million rupees (around $4,900)."Before, I didn't follow a timetable. I was always disrupted by the power outages," he told he has "freedom and certainty" to continue his catering the eastern city of Sialkot, safety wear manufacturer Hammad Noor switched to solar power in 2023, calling it his "best business decision", breaking even in 18 months and now saving 1 million rupees every cost of converting Noor's second factory has now risen by nearly 1.5 million rupees under the new government tax."The tax imposed is unfair and gives an advantage to big businesses over smaller ones," he said."Policymakers seem completely disconnected from the public and business community."
Int'l Business Times
3 hours ago
- Business
- Int'l Business Times
Pakistan's Quiet Solar Rush Puts Pressure On National Grid
Pakistanis are increasingly ditching the national grid in favour of solar power, prompting a boom in rooftop panels and spooking a government weighed down by billions of dollars of power sector debt. The quiet energy revolution has spread from wealthy neighbourhoods to middle- and lower-income households as customers look to escape soaring electricity bills and prolonged power cuts. Down a cramped alley in Pakistan's megacity of Karachi, residents fighting the sweltering summer heat gather in Fareeda Saleem's modest home for something they never experienced before -- uninterrupted power. "Solar makes life easier, but it's a hard choice for people like us," she says of the installation cost. Saleem was cut from the grid last year for refusing to pay her bills in protest over enduring 18-hour power cuts. A widow and mother of two disabled children, she sold her jewellery -- a prized possession for women in Pakistan -- and borrowed money from relatives to buy two solar panels, a solar inverter and battery to store energy, for 180,000 rupees ($630). As temperatures pass 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), children duck under Saleem's door and gather around the breeze of her fan. Mounted on poles above homes, solar panels have become a common sight across the country of 240 million people, with the installation cost typically recovered within two to five years. Making up less than two percent of the energy mix in 2020, solar power reached 10.3 percent in 2024, according to the global energy think tank Ember. But in a remarkable acceleration, it more than doubled to 24 percent in the first five months of 2025, becoming the largest source of energy production for the first time. It has edged past gas, coal and nuclear electricity sources, as well as hydropower which has seen hundreds of millions of dollars of investment over the past decades. As a result, Pakistan has unexpectedly surged towards its target of renewable energy, making up 60 percent of its energy mix by 2030. Dave Jones, chief analyst at Ember, told AFP that Pakistan was "a leader in rooftop solar". Soaring fuel costs globally, coupled with demands from the International Monetary Fund to slash government subsidies, led successive administrations to repeatedly hike electricity costs. Prices have fluctuated since 2022 but peaked at a 155-percent increase and power bills sometimes outweigh the cost of rent. "The great solar rush is not the result of any government's policy push," Muhammad Basit Ghauri, an energy transition expert at Renewables First, told AFP. "Residents have taken the decision out of clear frustration over our classical power system, which is essentially based on a lot of inefficiencies." Pakistan sources most of its solar equipment from neighbouring China, where prices have dropped sharply, largely driven by overproduction and tech advancements. But the fall in national grid consumers has crept up on an unprepared government burdened by $8 billion of power sector debt, analysts say. Pakistan depends heavily on costly gas imports which it sells at a loss to national energy providers. It is also tied into lengthy contracts with independent power producers, including some owned by China, for which it pays a fixed amount regardless of actual demand. A government report in March said the solar power increase has created a "disproportionate financial burden onto grid consumers, contributing to higher electricity tariffs and undermining the sustainability of the energy sector". Electricity sales dropped 2.8 percent year-on-year in June, marking a second consecutive year of decline. Last month, the government imposed a new 10-percent tax on all imported solar, while the energy ministry has proposed slashing the rate at which it buys excess solar energy from consumers. "The household solar boom was a response to a crisis, not the cause of it," said analyst Jones, warning of "substantial problems for the grid" including a surge during evenings when solar users who cannot store energy return to traditional power. The national grid is losing paying customers like businessman Arsalan Arif. A third of his income was spent on electricity bills at his Karachi home until he bought a 10-kilowatt solar panel for around 1.4 million rupees (around $4,900). "Before, I didn't follow a timetable. I was always disrupted by the power outages," he told AFP. Now he has "freedom and certainty" to continue his catering business. In the eastern city of Sialkot, safety wear manufacturer Hammad Noor switched to solar power in 2023, calling it his "best business decision", breaking even in 18 months and now saving 1 million rupees every month. The cost of converting Noor's second factory has now risen by nearly 1.5 million rupees under the new government tax. "The tax imposed is unfair and gives an advantage to big businesses over smaller ones," he said. "Policymakers seem completely disconnected from the public and business community." The quiet energy revolution has spread from wealthy neighbourhoods to middle- and lower-income households as customers look to escape soaring electricity bills AFP Mounted on poles above homes, solar panels have become a common sight across the country of 240 million people AFP Making up less than two percent of the energy mix in 2020, solar power reached 10.3 percent in 2024, according to the global energy think tank Ember AFP Pakistan has unexpectedly surged towards its target of renewable energy, making up 60 percent of its energy mix by 2030 AFP Electricity sales dropped 2.8 percent year-on-year in June, marking a second consecutive year of decline AFP
Bangkok Post
5 hours ago
- Science
- Bangkok Post
Skimming the Sun, probe sheds light on space weather threats
WASHINGTON - Eruptions of plasma piling atop one another, solar wind streaming out in exquisite detail -- the closest-ever images of our Sun are a gold mine for scientists. Captured by the Parker Solar Probe during its closest approach to our star starting on December 24, 2024, the images were recently released by NASA and are expected to deepen our understanding of space weather and help guard against solar threats to Earth. - A historic achievement – "We have been waiting for this moment since the late Fifties," Nour Rawafi, project scientist for the mission at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, told AFP. Previous spacecraft have studied the Sun, but from much farther away. Parker was launched in 2018 and is named after the late physicist Eugene Parker, who in 1958 theorized the existence of the solar wind -- a constant stream of electrically charged particles that fan out through the solar system. The probe recently entered its final orbit where its closest approach takes it to just 3.8 million miles from the Sun's surface -- a milestone first achieved on Christmas Eve 2024 and repeated twice since on an 88-day cycle. To put the proximity in perspective: if the distance between Earth and the Sun measured one foot, Parker would be hovering just half an inch away. Its heat shield was engineered to withstand up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 degrees Celsius) -- but to the team's delight, it has only experienced around 2,000F (1090C) so far, revealing the limits of theoretical modeling. Remarkably, the probe's instruments, just a yard (meter) behind the shield, remain at little more than room temperature. - Staring at the Sun – The spacecraft carries a single imager, the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR), which captured data as Parker plunged through the Sun's corona, or outer atmosphere. Stitched into a seconds-long video, the new images reveal coronal mass ejections (CMEs) -- massive bursts of charged particles that drive space weather -- in high resolution for the first time. "We had multiple CMEs piling up on top of each other, which is what makes them so special," Rawafi said. "It's really amazing to see that dynamic happening there." Such eruptions triggered the widespread auroras seen across much of the world last May, as the Sun reached the peak of its 11-year cycle. Another striking feature is how the solar wind, flowing from the left of the image, traces a structure called the heliospheric current sheet: an invisible boundary where the Sun's magnetic field flips from north to south. It extends through the solar system in the shape of a twirling skirt and is critical to study, as it governs how solar eruptions propagate and how strongly they can affect Earth. - Why it matters – Space weather can have serious consequences, such as overwhelming power grids, disrupting communications, and threatening satellites. As thousands more satellites enter orbit in the coming years, tracking them and avoiding collisions will become increasingly difficult -- especially during solar disturbances, which can cause spacecraft to drift slightly from their intended orbits. Rawafi is particularly excited about what lies ahead, as the Sun heads toward the minimum of its cycle, expected in five to six years. Historically, some of the most extreme space weather events have occurred during this declining phase -- including the infamous Halloween Solar Storms of 2003, which forced astronauts aboard the International Space Station to shelter in a more shielded area. "Capturing some of these big, huge be a dream," he said. Parker still has far more fuel than engineers initially expected and could continue operating for decades -- until its solar panels degrade to the point where they can no longer generate enough power to keep the spacecraft properly oriented. When its mission does finally end, the probe will slowly disintegrate -- becoming, in Rawafi's words, "part of the solar wind itself."
Herald Sun
6 hours ago
- Science
- Herald Sun
Skimming the Sun, probe sheds light on space weather threats
Don't miss out on the headlines from Breaking News. Followed categories will be added to My News. Eruptions of plasma piling atop one another, solar wind streaming out in exquisite detail -- the closest-ever images of our Sun are a gold mine for scientists. Captured by the Parker Solar Probe during its closest approach to our star starting on December 24, 2024, the images were recently released by NASA and are expected to deepen our understanding of space weather and help guard against solar threats to Earth. - A historic achievement – "We have been waiting for this moment since the late Fifties," Nour Rawafi, project scientist for the mission at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, told AFP. Previous spacecraft have studied the Sun, but from much farther away. Parker was launched in 2018 and is named after the late physicist Eugene Parker, who in 1958 theorized the existence of the solar wind -- a constant stream of electrically charged particles that fan out through the solar system. The probe recently entered its final orbit where its closest approach takes it to just 3.8 million miles from the Sun's surface -- a milestone first achieved on Christmas Eve 2024 and repeated twice since on an 88-day cycle. To put the proximity in perspective: if the distance between Earth and the Sun measured one foot, Parker would be hovering just half an inch away. Its heat shield was engineered to withstand up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 degrees Celsius) -- but to the team's delight, it has only experienced around 2,000F (1090C) so far, revealing the limits of theoretical modeling. Remarkably, the probe's instruments, just a yard (meter) behind the shield, remain at little more than room temperature. - Staring at the Sun – The spacecraft carries a single imager, the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR), which captured data as Parker plunged through the Sun's corona, or outer atmosphere. Stitched into a seconds-long video, the new images reveal coronal mass ejections (CMEs) -- massive bursts of charged particles that drive space weather -- in high resolution for the first time. "We had multiple CMEs piling up on top of each other, which is what makes them so special," Rawafi said. "It's really amazing to see that dynamic happening there." Such eruptions triggered the widespread auroras seen across much of the world last May, as the Sun reached the peak of its 11-year cycle. Another striking feature is how the solar wind, flowing from the left of the image, traces a structure called the heliospheric current sheet: an invisible boundary where the Sun's magnetic field flips from north to south. It extends through the solar system in the shape of a twirling skirt and is critical to study, as it governs how solar eruptions propagate and how strongly they can affect Earth. - Why it matters – Space weather can have serious consequences, such as overwhelming power grids, disrupting communications, and threatening satellites. As thousands more satellites enter orbit in the coming years, tracking them and avoiding collisions will become increasingly difficult -- especially during solar disturbances, which can cause spacecraft to drift slightly from their intended orbits. Rawafi is particularly excited about what lies ahead, as the Sun heads toward the minimum of its cycle, expected in five to six years. Historically, some of the most extreme space weather events have occurred during this declining phase -- including the infamous Halloween Solar Storms of 2003, which forced astronauts aboard the International Space Station to shelter in a more shielded area. "Capturing some of these big, huge be a dream," he said. Parker still has far more fuel than engineers initially expected and could continue operating for decades -- until its solar panels degrade to the point where they can no longer generate enough power to keep the spacecraft properly oriented. When its mission does finally end, the probe will slowly disintegrate -- becoming, in Rawafi's words, "part of the solar wind itself." ia/jgc Originally published as Skimming the Sun, probe sheds light on space weather threats
New Indian Express
7 hours ago
- Climate
- New Indian Express
Thanjai farmers in a spot as unseasonal heat affects availability of groundwater in TN
THANJAVUR: Farmers in parts of the district left to rely on groundwater for irrigation complain that the unseasonal hot weather conditions prevailing over the past two weeks has led to a dip in the water table, forcing them to incur additional expenses in irrigating their crops. Mentioning them too facing such inconvenience due to canal water not reaching their areas, farmers in the tail-end region demand withdrawal of the internal turn system and release water simultaneously into all branch canals of the Grand Anicut Canal (GAC). The temperature in Thanjavur has been breaching the 100 degree Fahrenheit mark for several days over the past two weeks. R Sukumaran of Kakkarai in Orathanadu said, 'Usually the temperature in July will not be this high. It would be high only during May-June.' With River Cauvery water released into the GA canal also not reaching the tail-end areas, the hot weather conditions have led to the water table to fall in Orathanadu and surrounding areas, he added. 'Adding to this there has been voltage problems. Hence we aren't able to pump enough groundwater for kuruvai paddy transplantation,' Sukumaran said, adding that transplantation work in areas like Kakkarai, Poovathur, Kannanthangudi and Tirunallar have hence been affected.
