Chinese solar panel imports to Pakistan are soaring this year

, Washington D.C. Correspondent
Source: Renewables First, Pakistan Electricity Review 2025 • 2025 depicts data from January through April. Renewables First analyzed Chinese import data collected by UK-based climate think tank Ember.

Chinese solar panel imports into Pakistan in 2025 are set to exceed last year’s record-breaking total, per new data from Islamabad-based think tank Renewables First.

These panels have been flooding Pakistani markets in recent years as the country copes with rolling blackouts from its fossil-fuel dominated power grid and a 155% jump in electricity bill prices since 2021.

Solar panel imports from China more than quadrupled to 16.6 gigawatts (GW) in 2024 from 2.5 GW in 2021, making Pakistan one of the world’s top destinations for Chinese panels, according to the think tank.

And it’s showing up in the power supply: Solar has accounted for a quarter of Pakistan’s utility-supplied electricity so far this year, Reuters reported Tuesday based on data from nonprofit Ember.

The South Asian country has imported 10 GW of solar panels from China already this year — almost 60% of the total imported last year, the data shows.

“This trend suggests that 2025 is on track to surpass last year’s solar imports,” Rabia Babar, data manager for Renewables First, told Cipher.

Solar panels are popping up all over Pakistan. Amena Saiyid reported on how all that renewable energy is changing the country as well as how she saw them being used.

Solar panels have become increasingly attractive and affordable for Pakistanis as prices have plunged, according to the International Energy Agency.

China produces far more solar panels than it needs and has been selling them at low cost around the globe, targeting Asian markets. It has invested $60 billion in energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan, where it doesn’t face the kind of anti-dumping tariffs levied by the United States and the European Union.

But the availability of cheap solar panels has a price. While consumers are benefiting from lower electricity bills, Pakistan’s fledgling solar manufacturing sector can’t compete because they had to pay import duties on solar panel components until last year, which contributed to the domestic sector’s demise. Last year, the government lifted the levy for manufacturers that met certain conditions, but developers say the relief came too late.

Last week, the country’s ruling party proposed an 18% sales tax on imported panels in its upcoming budget to boost domestic manufacturing. But the levy may run into trouble because the party’s coalition partner in the government opposes the measure.  

The Pakistan Solar Association said the claim the measure will boost local manufacturing is flawed “because there is no large scale or high efficiency solar panel manufacturing facility in Pakistan today,” Waqas Moosa, head of the solar group and co-founder of Lahore-based Hadron Solar, said in a statement. 

For example, Pakistan-based Tesla Industries (an engineering firm incorporated in 1992 and unrelated to Elon Musk’s company) made mainstream solar panels over a decade ago but, after running into competition from cheaper Chinese alternatives, pivoted to making panels just for small-scale applications.