Pakistan tests sharing rooftop solar power with neighbors in 2 pilot sites
Pakistan has imported more than 50 gigawatts of solar panels against a national grid built for 41 gigawatts. A Pakistani policy institute, the Policy Research Institute for Equitable Development, PRIED, asks what to do with all that rooftop solar power already installed. Its answer is a swarm grid, a digitally coordinated local network that lets a household use its own solar power, store it, sell surplus to a neighbor, buy power from a neighbor, and fall back on the national grid only when needed, PRIED own way of sharing rooftop solar power with neighbors instead of the utility. PRIED tested the idea in 2 places, an urban cluster in Sector G 13 in Islamabad and 2 rural villages, Thario and Khario, in the Tharparkar district of Sindh, and found the model technically workable in both.
Built power plants sit idle while Pakistan still pays for them
The case for coordinating what is already built rests on a paradox PRIED lays out in Pakistani rupees. Pakistan installed power capacity exceeds 41,000 megawatts, a megawatt equal to 1 million watts, but winter electricity demand often falls to 12,000 to 13,000 megawatts, leaving much of that capacity unused for months. Utilities still owe those idle plants capacity payments, paid just for having electricity available whether it gets used or not, worth 1.8 to 2.3 trillion rupees a year, more than 7,000,000,000 dollars. PRIED argues coordinated home solar systems could serve part of that unmet demand instead of leaving plants idle and billed anyway.
Winter baseload of 12.5 gigawatts is this article own midpoint of the 12,000 to 13,000 megawatt range source 3 gives, not a figure source 3 states outright.
Show the numbers
| Panels imported | 50 |
| Installed capacity | 41 |
| Winter baseload demand | 12.5 |
How the tested swarm grid pricing worked
In both pilot locations, PRIED tested the same commission based tariff, a pricing system where buyer and seller agree the price of each unit of electricity traded rather than a regulator fixing it. Prosumers, the study term for people who generate and consume their own power, and consumers who only consume it, traded at an average of 20 rupees per unit, plus a fee of 1% to 5% of each trade, set by the seller, paid to whoever runs the swarm grid. PRIED found the urban Islamabad cluster commercially viable as a stand alone business under that pricing. The rural Tharparkar case needed upfront subsidy and help building local capacity first, since incomes and system sizes there are smaller.
Pakistan distributed solar mostly has no net metering deal
PRIED own 2025 survey found 33.34 gigawatts of installed distributed solar in Pakistan, split by connection type, 6.03 gigawatts net metered, meaning connected under an agreement to sell surplus back to the utility, 19 gigawatts connected without that agreement, and 8.31 gigawatts off the grid.
The 3 figures are PRIED own 2025 survey total of 33.34 gigawatts of installed distributed solar, split by how each system connects to the grid.
Show the numbers
| Net metered | 6.03 |
| Non net metered | 19 |
| Off grid | 8.31 |
1 regulation blocks neighbor to neighbor solar trading
None of those 3 groups can legally do what a swarm grid needs, sell power to a neighbor instead of the utility. PRIED own reading of the rules finds the same restriction carried over largely unchanged from the 2015 Net Metering Regulations into the Prosumer Regulations 2026, which the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority, NEPRA, put in place on 9 February 2026 to replace them. Both versions bar a solar owner equipment from being used to sell electricity to anyone except the distribution company, the utility that owns the local wires. NEPRA was still amending that same 2026 regulation as recently as 6 August 2026. PRIED calls on NEPRA to write new peer to peer trading rules and on the Independent System Market Operator, ISMO, to open the retail electricity market within the next year, before a swarm grid can move beyond a feasibility study.