Pakistan’s electricity system is struggling to keep up with increasing consumers while people break away from the national grid for cheaper energy sources, according to the Pakistan Electricity Review 2026.
The report says grid electricity sales increased only 1.7 percent in FY25, reaching 111 TWh, while the number of electricity consumers grew 5.3 percent over the same period.
This divergence suggests that while more households and users are being added, they are consuming less electricity from the grid, largely due to rapid adoption of solar power.
Over a longer period, the mismatch becomes more severe. Despite population growth of around 2 percent annually and average real GDP growth of 3 percent, grid electricity sales have declined by about 1 percent per year over the past five years, indicating that electricity demand is increasingly being met outside the formal grid system.
Sector-level data reflects the same trend. Domestic electricity sales rose 4 percent in FY25, but household connections increased 6 percent, showing lower average consumption per connection. In agriculture, grid electricity use dropped sharply, falling 47 percent between FY22 and FY25, as farmers increasingly shifted to solar-powered irrigation.
In several distribution companies, consumer growth is no longer translating into higher electricity sales.
It concludes that Pakistan’s power sector is now operating under a structural mismatch: a centralized system built to sell more electricity through the grid, while demand is rapidly decentralizing and moving off-grid.
