05/21/2026
Join us for a FREE WEBINAR Tuesday, June 9 at 10am Mountain Time.
Register Here: https://col.st/vpj8j
Beyond the Grid: Energy Governance, Justice and Pakistan’s People-led Solar Transition in the Global South
Visiting Scholar, Faisal Sharif . Faisal Sharif Wattoo will share his insights about going "Beyond the Grid"!
Pakistan is undergoing one of the world’s most rapid and unprecedented people-led solar transitions, with households and businesses increasingly exercising societal agency in reshaping energy provision beyond conventional state-led pathways. Emerging largely outside formal policy and planning frameworks, this transition offers an important lens for rethinking energy governance and sustainability transitions in the Global South.
Drawing on ongoing doctoral research at the University of Bath, UK, examining the political economy and justice dimensions of energy transitions in the Global South, this talk explores the political-economy drivers of Pakistan’s rapid bottom-up solar transition. It discusses how historical path dependencies, infrastructure constraints, and uneven development within the centralized electricity system created the conditions for the recent surge in decentralized solar adoption across the country. The discussion further reflects on how solarization is simultaneously expanding energy access and affordability for many users, while partial grid defection also generates uneven socio-economic outcomes, new governance challenges, and emerging distributional tensions within the electricity system.
The talk situates Pakistan’s solar boom within broader debates on sustainability transitions, energy justice, and equitable energy futures. It argues that decentralized energy transitions are not only technological transformations, but also socio-technical and political processes that reshape relationships between citizens, markets, and the state across the Global South.
