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Pakistan should start building a recycling industry for solar panels and batteries now rather than wait for the first large wave of end-of-life equipment to become a waste-management problem.
Speaking to Dawn during a recent visit to Pakistan, Global Solar Council (GSC) chief executive Sonia Dunlop said the country’s rapid, largely consumer-led adoption of solar power offered an opportunity to build a circular solar and battery economy, with valuable materials eventually recovered and reused locally.
“The smart thing to do for Pakistan is to put in place a system now for the recycling of the solar panels that are being installed now. In 20 years’ time, you will have a huge mine of silver, of polysilicon, of aluminium that you can then just recycle and turn into a totally circular economy here in Pakistan,” Ms Dunlop said.
She said battery recycling could develop even sooner because batteries had shorter lifetimes than solar panels. “We don’t want to fix an atmospheric pollution problem with an environmental waste problem,” she said, describing battery recycling as a growing challenge. She said lithium-ion batteries are recyclable and contain valuable materials, creating a commercial incentive to recover them rather than dispose of them.
Setting up a system for recycling panels will yield a huge mine of critical minerals that can turn into a circular economy
The comments come as Pakistan experiences an unprecedented surge in rooftop solar installations, driven largely by consumers seeking relief from high electricity bills. Much of the equipment has been imported from China, raising questions about the sustainability of an import-dependent solar transition and whether Pakistan should develop domestic manufacturing capacity.
Ms Dunlop, however, argued that importing solar technology was fundamentally different from importing fossil fuels. “This is a technology, not a fuel,” she said. “Once you have imported the technology, you have it for 25, even 30 years. It is yours, and it is domestic energy security.”
She paid tribute to China for dramatically lowering the cost of solar and battery storage, saying this had “transformed the world’s prospects”. But she argued that Pakistan should focus on capturing value at the end of the equipment’s life.
Global Solar Council chair-elect John Grimes, who is also chief executive of the Renewable Energy Council Asia Pacific, said Pakistan should not attempt to compete directly with China in mass production of solar panels. “I wouldn’t encourage any country to try and compete head-to-head on the volume that is produced out of China,” he said, noting the scale of Chinese production, thin margins and extensive research and development capabilities of Chinese manufacturers.
Instead, he suggested Pakistan develop expertise in specialised areas suited to its domestic market, such as low-voltage solar and battery systems and equipment designed around 12-volt and 24-volt appliances, and eventually export that expertise.
The GSC officials described Pakistan as an exceptional example of how quickly distributed solar can expand when consumers have a strong economic incentive. “Pakistan is the miracle country of the last five years,” Ms Dunlop said, referring to the rapid growth of rooftop solar. She said the country’s “solar rush” showed how quickly an energy transition could take place from the ground up.
But the rapid expansion has also exposed weaknesses in Pakistan’s electricity system. Solar adoption has been concentrated among households, businesses and industries able to afford the upfront cost, while poorer consumers remain reliant on the grid. Rising distributed generation is also reshaping demand and straining traditional tariff and market structures.
Ms Dunlop said the next phase should be a “solar and battery storage rush”, backed by market reforms, time-of-use pricing and a battery-storage action plan allowing batteries to earn revenue from frequency, voltage and other grid services.
Ms Dunlop said solar and storage were uniquely scalable technologies that could serve households at very different income levels. Small off-grid systems, plug-in solar and storage and community or shared systems could extend the benefits beyond homeowners able to finance large rooftop installations. “If you add to that local microfinance solutions, where local banks just get over that hurdle and get comfortable with this technology enough to give out small loans to help people get over that initial capital cost, then this really can be something that leaves no one behind,” she said.
Mr Grimes said a small solar panel and battery could transform the lives of poorer households by providing electricity, allowing children to study at night. He also argued that existing solar consumers should not necessarily be viewed as imposing a cost on other electricity users, because their generation reduces demand on the grid. The bigger challenge, he said, was that solar generation was concentrated during daylight hours while electricity demand rises in the evening. Batteries could bridge that gap.
He pointed to Australia, where government support for household batteries has helped increase storage alongside rooftop solar. The country is also developing systems capable of controlling electricity flows from individual solar installations, effectively creating a virtual power plant. For Pakistan, the challenge is how to integrate millions of distributed solar systems into an already financially stressed electricity network.
Ms Dunlop said the GSC was developing a tool for grid operators that would allow them to simulate future electricity systems with high shares of distributed solar and storage and determine how networks could meet demand throughout the year. She said Pakistan would also need concessional financing from multilateral development banks to modernise its grid.
But she argued that distributed generation could ultimately reduce, rather than increase, some grid-investment requirements because electricity could be generated close to where it was consumed. Such arrangements, she said, could turn distributed solar and batteries into a solution for grid operators rather than a challenge.
Mr Grimes was more blunt about the role of government in Pakistan’s solar expansion, noting that much of the investment had come directly from households and businesses rather than the state. “It hasn’t cost the national budget,” he said. “I think that’s the beauty. It’s almost the case of, actually, let the government get out of the way, let households and businesses find the solution. If they’re economical, invest in that solution and bring that capacity forward for the benefit of Pakistan.”
The next challenge is not simply to add more solar capacity but to ensure that the benefits of the transition reach poorer households, batteries are integrated into the grid, electricity markets reward flexibility, and the equipment installed today eventually becomes the raw material for a domestic recycling industry.
The writer is a Dawn staffer
Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, September 14th, 2026
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