A truly wild story is unfolding in Pakistan. Over the past few years the country has become the globe’s third largest importer of Chinese solar panels, and yet none of the resulting projects are operated by, or even visible to, the national utility.

Simultaneously, demand from the grid has dropped 9.1% over the past 12 months, which has many scared of a potential utility death spiral.

Here’s a recent story in the Financial Times on what’s been going on that’s good background.

To unpack this, we sat down with Jenny Chase of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. She has been chasing down this story since 2021, when she was the first to report on it.

Jenny is also the OG solar analyst and knows more about this space than pretty much anyone. We highly suggesting scrolling through her annual “Opinions About Solar” megathread on twitter.

On an unrelated note, DERVOS tickets are selling fast. There’s less than 15 left at the discounted price, so snag yours quickly. Final speakers, sessions, demo-day participants, and more to come out shortly.