KARACHI: Pakistan’s textile and manufacturing giants are switching to their own wind, solar and batteries, as the grid power getting costlier and unreliable.
Reon One (Private) Limited (ROPL), incorporated in April 2025 and based in Karachi, is building a hybrid renewable energy facility combining a wind turbine generator, photovoltaic solar panels, and a battery energy storage system (BESS) at the premises of Tri-Pack Films Limited in Port Qasim, Karachi.
Tri-Pack, a major packaging manufacturer, will become the “Bulk Power Consumer” of electricity generated on-site, bypassing the national grid for a significant share of its energy needs. ROPL has already secured registration for its generation concurrence application.
Telecom Netzero (Private) Limited (TNZPL), incorporated in November 2023, has meanwhile applied for concurrence to build a 5 MW wind power facility, two 2.5 MW turbines manufactured by GE, standing 76 metres tall with a stated efficiency of 25.2%, at the premises of Gul Ahmed Textile Mills Limited in the Landhi Industrial Area, Korangi. The electricity generated will be sold directly to Gul Ahmed, one of Pakistan’s largest vertically integrated textile exporters, again reducing its reliance on grid supply.
Why Factories Are Making the Switch
The pattern behind these two filings is not isolated. It reflects a well-documented and accelerating trend across Pakistan’s industrial sector, driven by a simple economic reality: grid electricity has become too expensive and too unpredictable for energy-intensive manufacturing to rely on.
According to a June 2026 report, the federal government has had to draft an entirely new industrial tariff policy specifically because so many large power users are migrating to solar and other off-grid sources, threatening the government’s ability to recover fixed grid costs.
Officials involved in the plan acknowledged that industries have moved to self-generation largely because grid tariffs became too high to justify staying fully connected.
The scale of the price gap is stark. One industry commentary noted that a large floating solar project on Keenjhar Lake could deliver power at roughly Rs 12 per unit, compared with an effective industrial cost of around Rs 34 per unit under current arrangements, nearly three times as expensive.
Separately, retail data trackers show Pakistan’s average industrial tariff sitting in a wide band, commonly cited between roughly Rs 25 and Rs 55 per unit depending on load, timing, and fuel-price adjustments layered on top of the base rate.
The switch to solar that policymakers now find so worrying only happened because grid tariffs climbed high enough to make the switch make economic sense.
Pakistan’s power sector continues to grapple with circular debt, transmission and distribution losses estimated at 20–25%, and continued dependence on expensive imported fuel and furnace oil during low-hydel seasons, all of which get passed through to industrial consumers via fuel price adjustments and quarterly tariff revisions.
Reliability, Not Just Price
Cost is only half the equation. For continuous-process industries like textiles and packaging, where a single unplanned outage can damage in-progress production runs or halt export shipments, the reliability of supply matters as much as the price per unit.
On-site generation paired with battery storage, as in ROPL’s hybrid wind-solar-BESS model for Tri-Pack, offers factories a way to insulate themselves from both price volatility and unplanned load-shedding, giving them predictable costs and near-continuous power for operations that cannot afford to stop.
The government’s response has been telling. Rather than only celebrating the shift to clean energy, authorities have proposed a two-part industrial tariff policy that would reward companies for staying on the grid with lower per-unit rates while imposing heavier fixed charges on those who reduce their grid consumption in favor of solar or wind.
Officials say that at higher levels of grid utilisation, industrial tariffs could fall to as low as six US cents per kWh, potentially making Pakistan’s industrial power more internationally competitive, but that outcome depends on convincing companies to stay connected rather than go it alone.
Tri-Pack Films and Gul Ahmed Textile Mills join a growing list of major industrial names spanning textiles, packaging, cement, and other energy-intensive sectors choosing wind turbines, solar panels, and battery storage over the national grid.
It’s a rational response to years of rising tariffs and inconsistent supply, and one that regulators, distribution companies, and policymakers are now scrambling to address.
