Pakistan's power regulator greenlights $58 billion, 11-year electricity plan amid internal dissent

The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) issued a conditional approval for the Integrated System Plan 2025, a comprehensive 11-year roadmap involving about $58 billion in generation and transmission projects. All three board members, including the chairman, submitted more than 12 pages of dissent, highlighting concerns over the exclusion and inclusion of major projects and the bypass of the constitutional Council of Common Interests.

The plan adopts the low-growth, business-as-usual scenario, targeting 26,045 MW of capacity additions—17,485 MW committed and 8,560 MW optimized—while retiring 2,577 MW, bringing total installed capacity to 62,657 MW, including 8,120 MW of net metering. Transmission investments total roughly $10.65 billion, covering new substations, reinforcements, and voltage control facilities. A $900 million battery energy storage allocation is withheld pending a detailed technical and economic study, and a 40 MW on-site plant is planned for the Gwadar-Makran region due to Iran-US grid import disruptions. The regulator also noted the addition of a 269 MW wind-solar hybrid project at Dhabeji and directed that tariff impacts be quantified, with forecasts indicating a rise to Rs37.28 per unit by 2035.