Solar Plus Battery Storage — This Changes Everything

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CleanTechnica has published hundreds of articles on renewable energy and battery storage, but we have not always thoroughly explored how those advances will alter societies that take advantage of them. Predicting the future accurately is impossible. If we could do so, there would be no need for sporting contests, as the result of games would be known in advance.

But by paying close attention to small developments, we sometimes can get a glimpse of what the future might be. One of our regular readers — Bryan FW — recently posted a comment on a CleanTechnica article that seemed particularly insightful. He wrote:

“The evolution here, once battery packs became cheap enough and ubiquitous enough, is that those consumers with the most resources will exit the grid first. Those remaining will become increasingly riskier as paying customers, creating either lower utility profits or government intervention where government increasingly subsidizes utilities until it becomes effectively the single payer for those remaining (except in libertarian states, of course, where people who can’t pay have to go back to the nineteenth century).

“Either utility profits go away, or grid improvements halt. I think we can all guess which….The concept of moving electrons over great distance becomes obsolete. No more efficiencies of scale, no more fungible electricity markets, no more grand vision of harvesting the sun as it moves across the continent.

“And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. With that decrease in efficiency comes a corresponding increase in redundancy. Ransomware or enemy action or natural disaster may take down microgrids here and there, but we just won’t be seeing these widespread failures that are so difficult and costly to deal with anymore. Globalization is the past; islanding is the future.”

A Model For Solar Plus Storage

His words may be prescient. There have been lots of headlines this week about how cheap solar panels imported from China have transformed life for many in Pakistan. Where previously the electricity provided by traditional power generators and distributed via a creaky energy grid was expensive and unreliable, now many Pakistanis are simply exiting the electricity market and taking responsibility for their own energy needs.

A report by Energy Monitor dated August 20, 2025, says that Pakistan imported 17 GW of solar PV and an estimated 1.25 GWh of lithium-ion battery packs in 2024. The expectations are that by 2030, battery imports could increase to 8.75 GWh, which would be enough to meet over a quarter of peak demand. Solar by day, storage by night would become the new norm for the country.

“The surge in solar and batteries is not only driving down energy costs for Pakistani users but also enhancing reliability and contributing to the country’s energy sovereignty by reducing dependence on imported fuels,” Energy Monitor says.

New Challenges

There are bumps in the road, however. The transformation “poses new challenges for grid resilience and system integration. The rapid growth of distributed energy is creating a divide between grid-dependent users and those who can afford off-grid solutions such as rooftop solar and batteries.” That is pretty much what Bryan FW predicted in his comment.

Energy Monitor adds, “Pakistan’s energy transition underscores the need for utility-scale solar projects to complement rooftop and distributed systems, essential for meeting growing demand and facilitating the transition. Financing solutions must cater to all segments of the population to ensure that the rapid shift to solar and storage benefits the entire power system.”

“Other emerging economies can draw valuable insights from Pakistan’s experience. Recommendations include making the energy transition inclusive, integrating distributed energy into the system, including legacy assets, incorporating the mobility sector, and planning ahead for scale.”

A careful reader might fairly conclude that the energy transition could be messy — something common to most technology revolutions. It is worth noting that the Washington Post ran a story with a headline that focused on the impact this solar revolution will have on Pakistanis who cannot afford solar and storage systems and are burdened by higher energy costs.

The headline — “How Pakistan’s solar energy boom led to higher power bills for the poor” — may be accurate, but its emphasis seems designed to appeal to the MAGAverse first and foremost, something the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper has made its primary editorial policy since January 20.

A Market-Led Transition

As CleanTechnica reported last year, in November, 2024, the World Economic Forum said that Pakistan’s rapid adoption of solar power, which is being driven primarily by market forces and with only minimal political support, provides valuable lessons for other emerging markets. “Declining solar panel prices, coupled with skyrocketing grid electricity tariffs that have increased by 155% over three years, are fueling a rush in renewable energy adoption in Pakistan, with solar power leading the way. The country is now the world’s sixth-largest solar market,” it said.

The driving force behind the surge in solar power in Pakistan is economics, not policies. Many countries feel threatened by China’s overproduction of solar panels, which has driven down their cost to the point where they are ridiculously cheap. As a result, Pakistan is now the third largest importer of Chinese-made solar panels.

If Pakistan had its own solar panel industry, it would impose significant import duties on those panels from China, but it does not. Therefore, the influx of cheap panels is welcomed by most Pakistanis, but not all. Industrial, agricultural, and residential sectors have embraced solar, with imported Chinese modules totaling 13 GW added in the first half of 2024. Forecasters predicted that figure would rise to 22 GW by end of 2024.

Kaiser Bengali, an economist who worked as an adviser to the chief minister of Pakistan’s southeastern Sindh province, says the influx of Chinese panels has sparked an episode of “circular debt” where those still reliant on the expensive state power grid need to choose between saving money to switch to solar or refusing to pay their bills.

If they choose the latter, it could spark a cascade of unpaid debts. Consumption of electricity from the national grid fell by 10% in 2023 compared to the previous year amid rising electricity prices, and this decrease could deepen as Islamabad faces pressure to increase electricity prices in order to repay a loan from the International Monetary Fund.

Grid Inefficiencies

Part of the problem is the inability of the national grid to deliver a stable supply of electricity. The International Energy Agency reports that Pakistan’s per capita electricity consumption grew by 87% between 2000 and 2022, yet more than 40 million people remain without access to electricity and half the population still lacks clean cooking facilities. Many more live in off-grid or under-served areas, without access to electricity for more than 4 hours a day. Meanwhile, record-breaking heat waves are boosting demand for basic cooling from fans and air conditioners.

Here we see the importance of Bryan FW’s comments. Upsetting the status quo will have important economic and policy considerations for Pakistan and not everyone will be a winner. But the path ahead seems clear. There are many countries that do not have stable electrical grids and who must import oil, coal, or LNG to power their generating stations. Now there is a way to leapfrog over all those issues, just as cell phones leapfrogged over issues associated with telephone networks that depended on wires.

A Clean Energy Revolution

The world is on the cusp of a clean energy revolution that will undo much of what is considered normal in electricity generation and distribution. You can spot the changes if you look carefully. The new watchwords will be resiliency and self sufficiency — concepts that strike fear into the hearts of traditional utility companies.

But the result will be more people who have direct control over their own personal energy supply either through self-generation or through reliance on local microgrids. We once thought New York City would be powered by clean energy imported from California, but now we see that in reality, it will be powered by locally produced electricity that is created during the day and distributed at night, thanks to energy storage technologies that are just now making their presence felt on a meaningful level.

We don’t know for sure that Bryan FW’s crystal ball is completely accurate, but there are signs that his vision is well on its way to fruition. The traditional model for how electricity is created and distributed was created in the 19th century. That model is rapidly become obsolete, thanks to renewables. There’s a bright new day coming and we can’t wait for it to arrive!