Nako Dost Muhammad (image on left) had never heard the hum of a fan. Living in a village named Kolahu in Tump, a tehsil in district Kech tucked between dusty hills and near the edge of the Iranian border, Nako’s life has been cloaked in darkness.
Since 2016, the electricity connections in their village had been completely cut off, making them rely on the dim, choking flame of a kerosene lamp. He remembers a night when his grandson was bitten by a scorpion. There was no proper light to see where the creepy creature had gone, no decent transport to take the boy to a dispensary or a fan to stop them from sleeping on the floor. From the school in the village to the dispensary nearby, none had power.
Until last month, Nako recalls, when a solar-panel-laden Zamyad vehicle from Turbat arrived. A local contractor and three other people came with unfamiliar tools: a metal pole, a solar panel, a fan, wires and, intriguingly, a battery that had neither sulphuric acid nor distilled water in it, he says. He was told by the contractor that he was among the 40 recipients from the village to receive “a home solar solution” under a new provincial scheme from the Energy Department of Balochistan.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province in terms of area, remains the most energy deprived region. Almost 36 per cent of Balochistan is connected to the national grid and the connected ones receive erratic supply, according to a report presented in the National Assembly of Pakistan. Therefore, in this void, solar technology has been a boon. The Energy Department of Balochistan in collaboration with the People’s Republic of China is now providing home solar systems through a 15,000 solar home system grant aid by the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) and the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund (SSCACF). These include 250 Watts panels, wiring kits, charge controllers and critically lithium-ion batteries to store power to be utilised during night.
Lithium Solar Charge Controller
Nako didn’t know what a “lithium-ion battery” was, nor had he heard of Guangdong, a Chinese province, stamped on the battery casing. What he knew about was a solar panel that caught sunlight, a battery that stored something invisible and that by the evening, his home — one mud house — would have two working lights and a fan to sleep just like in the city.
These lithium-ion batteries that are used to power electric scooters in Karachi or power up laptops and mobile phones in Lahore, are now providing electricity to the far away hamlets of Balochistan, often forgotten by the National power grid. From the fertile lands of Pishin district in the North to the draught-hit district of Gwadar in the South, these Chinese-made lithium-ion batteries, compact yet powerful, are converting sunlight into steady electricity in the night.
A Tale of two chemistries
“Lead acid batteries are the grandfather of energy storage invented in 1859,” Says Abdul Saboor, a chemistry professor in Atta Shad Degree college, Turbat. “They are cheap, recyclable and are locally manufactured by firms like Exide, Osaka and AGS. But they are heavy, require maintenance and give away 50 per cent of the charge stored in them. Unluckily, depending upon usage, their life span varies from 2 to five years.”
By contrast, he explains, lithium-ion batteries especially the Lithium-iron Phosphate variants are now the heart of solar systems, electric scooters, and backup power. They last longer, are lighter and discharge up to 90 to 95 per cent.
So what is the fine print?
“The cost”, says a consumer from Tump. “A 100Ah battery in the market costs Rs. 28,000 while a lithium-ion battery in that range would cost you Rs. 80,000.”
This expensive cost puts the lithium-ion batteries out of the reach of the middle class people. Another resident from Turbat confided in me that he purchased a lithium-ion battery in Gwadar — similar to the ones distributed under the provincial scheme — for Rs. 60,000, giving birth to a black market driven by high demand of the lithium-ion batteries and their quality.
Made in China: A Double-Edged Sword
Almost all, 90%, of the lithium-ion batteries in Pakistani markets are imported from China, with the remaining 10 per cent from United States and Bahrain. Brands like Dynavolt, CATL and BYD arrive through CPEC-linked logistics chains or local distributors from Karachi’s Saddar or Lahore’s Hall Road.
Between August 2023 to July 2024, Pakistan’s lithium-ion battery import from China stood at a staggering 710 shipments, according to Volza Pakistan’s Import data. Reports from the Pakistan’s Customs and Pakistan Bureau of Statistics show that from the fiscal years of 2019 to 2024, the import money for lithium-ion batteries increased from $12 million to a jaw-dropping $49 million.
Another report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), shows the lithium-ion batteries import in 2024 in the country was totalled around 1.25 GWh and additionally 400 megawatt-hour( MWh) in the months of January and February of 2025 alone. This report also reiterates that if this current trend to solarize the country with solar-plus-battery installation continues, luckily, Pakistan’s 26 per cent of peak electricity demand would be met by 2030. For now, importing batteries from China is a blessing, but there is a cost to this convenience.
Pakistan currently lacks local manufacturing capacity for lithium-ion batteries. We have no lithium mining, no cell production capabilities and no infrastructure to recycle e-waste. Given that the world lithium supply chain is tense due to geopolitical rivalries, Pakistan’s entire dependency on a single supplier could cause trade shocks.
“Probably, there would be a continued import of lithium-ion batteries from China or passive assembly units in the days to come.” Expresses, Asumi Heibitan, an Electric Engineer graduate from Bahaudin Zakriya University, Multan. “ If there is a shift in export policy by Beijing, a shipping issue or a geopolitical service cut-off, Pakistan won’t have any alternative supplier.”
There would also be an issue of equity just beyond trade risks, Asumi warns. A 5kWh lithium-ion battery with solar panel and inverter would cost more than two lakh__ an unaffordable price for most of the low-income families. Though schemes like the Energy Department of Balochistan would make a dent, but many marginalised communities remain excluded to-date.
On a different aspect, The Electric Vehicles Policy 2020-2025 of Pakistan has also envisaged to turn 30 per cent of all the vehicles into EVs by 2030. BYD alone envisions to assemble EVs in Pakistan by mid-2026, but with a single lithium -ion battery ally and sky-rocketing prices of such batteries in the global market, Pakistan’s nascent dream of Electric Vehicles could collapse overnight.
Environmental Hazards
Pakistan also doesn’t have any formal lithium-ion recycling capacity, which means the end-of-life batteries — typically containing poisonous metals like cobalt, manganese, nickel and lithium salts — would end up in waste sites, weakening soil health and water contamination. Resultantly, Pakistan is going to be a dumping ground for e-waste, without policies on lithium waste management.
“We are sleepwalking to an e-waste crisis.” says Bahram Baloch, a student from BUITEMS, Quetta. “ It is like buying thousands of ships with no ship-breaking yards in sight.”
Unfortunately, none of the technical universities of the country, be it UET Lahore, BUITEMS in Quetta or NED University offer specialized courses on battery assembly, recycling and management. This educational gap would definitely force reliance on foreign Chinese or German consultants for large-scale energy projects.
Though geological surveys by the Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation (PMDC) also suggest the possible availability of lithium in the Chagai district in Balochistan and the Gilgit-Baltistan region, this would, definitely change Pakistan from a consumer to contributor but Chinese extraction models, local rights and environmental safety factors also remain fragile.
The way ahead and the continued import
While the world advances to a more sophisticated green energy future, the continued import of Chinese-made lithium-ion batteries not merely becomes a trade practice but raises broader national policy questions: Should the country rely on this traditional imported green tech or start developing its own local manufacturing capacity? What if the these tens of thousands of installed lithium-ion batteries pile up on garbage heaps with no future disposal plans? Is it wise to build a green energy future with products that Pakistan doesn’t control?
Our neighbours and others have answers to offer. India, one of the importers of lithium-ion batteries is now heavily investing on its production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) battery storage. It has also enacted the Battery Waste Management Rule of 2022 to manufacture and recycle lithium-ion batteries locally and to manage e-waste. Bangladesh is working with private companies to make lithium-iron phosphate batteries and even small African countries, for example, Rwanda is investing on such pilot projects while we are left behind a import-only paradigm, in spite of investing on incentives to localise, assemble and innovate.
A way for a safe and greener future requires coordinated developments on multiple fronts. First, the government ought to encourage local battery assembly units by offering tax incentives, cheap loans and technical trainings. This will not only create jobs for the locals but also reduce the dependency on imports. Simultaneously, bilateral agreement with China should go beyond trade, like joint technology developments on battery maintenance and assembly units in SEZs (Special Economic Zones) in Gwadar under CPEC. On the other hand, the Pakistan Council of Renewable Energy Technologies in collaboration with NADRA and provincial Energy Departments should start mapping lithium-ion battery installations nationwide so that they could forecast future replacement and predict as well as manage waste volumes.
While Public education on battery safety standards, life span and quality should be prioritize. We also need to diversify our import sources from South Korea, UAE and Japan to avoid any jerk from global lithium-ion battery supply.
Back in Tump, the days are getting hotter. Nako Dost Muhammad tells the visitors proudly that he doesn’t fear the nights. His grandson can now study at the ungodly hours of the night without a kerosene lamp and that his wife doesn’t need to cook before dusk.
But his fear about the battery started after a teacher in the village told him that these batteries catch fire in temperatures above 60 centigrade. He wonders how long that box with Chinese letters would last, since he has received no receipt, no warranty cards and no ways to replace it.
For now, the lithium in his battery has travelled a long way — perhaps from a mining site in Chile to a factory in Guangdong in China, to the Karachi port, and then to a village with bumpy roads long forgotten by the National grid.
Lithium-ion batteries are a good fit for a country which aspires for a green energy future and with unreliable electricity but the way Pakistan is using them now — only importing with no local assembly units is a real risk. We need to decide whether we only want to be consumers of foreign technology or a country that localises, manages and innovates their own green energy solutions. Only the future will tell.
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