Pakistan Solar Association Wants Govt to Allow $800m for Solar Imports

At a time when Pakistan is facing acute power outages and the renewable energy sector posting sluggish growth, the Pakistan Solar Association (PSA) has requested the Power Ministry of Pakistan to allow the import of solar panels and other solar equipment. The PSA has asked for an annual limit of $800 million for the solar imports  and has said that this should be done as the problems of money laundering in this segment has been largely eliminated.

According to reports, the PSA met Power Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan. Mohsin Sahukat, the PSA Secretary General, has also written an official letter to the minister with few recommendations regarding imports in the solar sector.

Mohsin Sahukat requested the Pakistan minister to remove the solar energy sector from the list of non-essential items and rather consider the solar sector as an essential segment which is a global practice. The PSA acknowledged that the country is currently facing adverse economic conditions and said that the association will stand with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) when financing imports is a challenge.

PSA said that partial resuming of solar items’ imports will benefit Pakistan.

During last fiscal year, Pakistan imported 2.4 GW of solar panels having an import value of about $ 1.2 billion. PSA believes that this year the demand for solar imports would be around $ 1.8 billion.

The PSA wants the federal government to ask SBP and other commercial banks to help in the solar imports through an annual limit of $ 800 million. Of

Recently, Pakistan kicked off 9,000 MW projects under ‘Solar Energy Initiatives’ on priority. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif has also decided to install solar power panels on all government buildings to harness green energy and reduce dependency on imported fossil-fuel based power.