Pakistan seeks IMF nod to sell surplus power to industry, agricultural sector

Pakistan is seeking the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) approval to supply surplus power to the industrial and agriculture sectors at an unsubsidized tariff of seven to 7.5 cents per unit, the country’s power minister, Awais Leghari, said, according to an official statement on Wednesday.

The once energy-deficient South Asian nation now boasts 7,000 megawatts of surplus electricity that it began generating with Beijing’s help under the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative.

“We have been consulting with the IMF for the past six months to approve the scheme,” Leghari told a consultative meeting held in the federal capital Islamabad regarding Pakistan’s transition from solar net metering to a net billing system.

The government plans to generate as much as 60 percent of its power from renewable energy sources like solar, wind, hydropower and nuclear energy over the next five years to cut the cash-strapped country’s oil import bill.

“There is no direct financial pressure on us [from the IMF],” the minister said, adding the move would balance the nation’s supply and demand of electricity, strengthen the power system and benefit consumers.

The Washington-based lender approved a $7 billion loan for Pakistan last year to help support export-led growth and is reviewing the government’s budgetary plans for FY26, starting in July.

According to the National Accounts Committee, Pakistan’s economy is expected to expand by 2.7 percent during the outgoing FY25 due to lackluster agricultural and industrial performance.

The power minister said the government, since June, has provided cross-subsidies of Rs 174 billion ($617 million) to industries, a measure that brought down industrial tariffs by 31 percent and significantly increased consumption.

Under its ongoing energy reforms, the minister said, the government is considering various proposals, including changing the current solar net metering system into a more effective, transparent and sustainable model.

“The government is not abolishing net metering,” he continued, adding that its scope had expanded so significantly that it was now seriously impacting the national grid, thus requiring timely intervention.

In the fast-solarizing Pakistan, net metering allows consumers to utilize the electricity generated by their in-house solar systems and send the surplus to the national grid at an agreed rate.