From grid modernization and smart metering to private investment and advanced technologies, Episode 2 of The Energy Sphere examines where new commercial opportunities are emerging in Pakistan’s evolving power sector.
Support by the U.S. Mission to Pakistan in partnership with the Pakistan-U.S. Alumni Network, the PUAN Grants Program is helping U.S. exchange alumni translate their professional expertise and exchange experiences into initiatives that address practical opportunities in Pakistan. Through one such grant, Barrister Sarah Kazmi, an International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) 2025 alumna, is implementing The Energy Sphere, a podcast series focused on substantive conversations around Pakistan’s energy sector, investment, technology, policy, and industry.
In Episode 2, “Power Talks: Investing in Pakistan’s Energy Future,” Kazmi speaks with Shah Jahan Mirza, former Managing Director of Pakistan’s Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB), drawing on his decades of experience in Pakistan’s power sector. The discussion moves beyond a general assessment of the sector to examine the mechanisms through which private investment is facilitated, reforms that have shaped the investment landscape, and areas where Pakistani and international businesses may find emerging commercial opportunities.
Understanding Pakistan’s Private Power Investment Framework
Mirza begins by explaining the role of PPIB as a central facilitation point for private-sector investment in power generation, transmission, and related areas.
According to Mirza, since its establishment in 1994, PPIB has facilitated private-sector generation capacity of approximately 25,000 megawatts, which he said represents more than 60 percent of Pakistan’s current generation capacity. He also highlights PPIB’s role in facilitating Pakistan’s first privately developed transmission line.
A central theme of the conversation is the importance of making investment processes easier to navigate. Mirza describes how prospective investors can approach PPIB at an early stage, including when they are still exploring the market or considering a potential project.
Rather than requiring an investor to independently navigate multiple government entities from the outset, PPIB coordinates with relevant stakeholders before a project proceeds through regulatory and tariff processes. Its role can continue through financial close, implementation agreements, government guarantees, commercial operations, and subsequent approvals or renewals.
For potential U.S. and other international investors, this provides an important insight: Pakistan already has an institutional framework specifically designed to facilitate private participation in its power sector.
Transparency as a Tool for Building Investor Confidence
Reflecting on his tenure at PPIB, Mirza identifies greater transparency and predictability as important elements in strengthening investor confidence.
He points in particular to the 2015 Power Policy, approved through the Council of Common Interests, and efforts to make key investment documentation publicly available. Standard power purchase agreements, implementation agreements, government guarantee formats, process information, and other documentation were made accessible so prospective investors could better understand the market before committing resources.
This, Mirza explains, allowed companies to assess legal requirements, available protections, project procedures, and potential investment structures before entering formal discussions.
He also recalls measures introduced during Pakistan’s period of severe electricity shortages to accelerate private investment. These included upfront tariff mechanisms intended to give investors greater clarity when evaluating project economics.
Mirza said that during roughly a decade of his leadership at PPIB, more than 15,000 MW of generation capacity was added to the national grid through approximately $20 billion in investment across around 30 independent power projects. He emphasizes that these results were the product of a broader institutional and team effort.
Where Are the Next Investment Opportunities?
One of the episode’s most useful sections for businesses and investors is Mirza’s assessment of where new opportunities may emerge.
While generation has historically attracted significant investment, he argues that some of the most important opportunities now lie elsewhere in the power value chain.
Grid modernization stands out prominently.
Mirza describes the need for additional investment in Pakistan’s transmission infrastructure, including digitization, automation, expansion, and technologies capable of improving grid management. As electricity generation patterns change, the ability of the national grid to absorb and manage additional capacity becomes increasingly important.
He also identifies smart metering and distribution modernization as potential areas for private-sector participation. Pakistan’s distribution infrastructure continues to rely extensively on conventional metering, while plans for large-scale smart-meter deployment could create opportunities for technology providers, investors, and companies offering digital power-management solutions.
Another major area discussed is battery energy storage. Mirza points to growing demand for storage solutions at both consumer and grid levels and notes that storage can help manage differences between when electricity is generated and when demand peaks. He also discusses potential opportunities connected to battery assembly or manufacturing, subject to future government policy and incentives.
The episode additionally examines the emerging competitive wholesale electricity market, which could create new models for private generation and electricity trading beyond the traditional single-buyer structure.
Taken together, these developments point toward a power market where investment opportunities increasingly extend beyond simply constructing new generating plants.
Turning Sector Challenges into Commercial Opportunities
Mirza also addresses a question often faced by prospective investors: how should they assess Pakistan’s power sector when headlines frequently focus on circular debt, surplus capacity, reliability issues, and other structural challenges?
His argument is that these challenges should not be viewed in isolation from the commercial opportunities they create.
Pakistan’s relatively low per-capita electricity consumption, gaps in reliable electricity supply, limitations in transmission capacity, and need for distribution upgrades all indicate areas where additional investment and technology could have commercial value.
Mirza highlights opportunities including grid expansion, grid modernization, battery storage, competitive electricity trading, and mini- or micro-grid solutions for areas where extending conventional infrastructure may not be commercially feasible.
He also points to Pakistan’s long history of independent power projects. In his assessment, more than three decades of private-sector participation have helped establish contractual structures that international commercial banks, multilateral institutions, and export credit institutions have previously financed.
For prospective investors, his message is therefore to examine the underlying market and investment opportunities alongside the challenges appearing in the headlines.
U.S.–Pakistan Energy Engagement: From Assistance to Investment
The conversation also traces several decades of U.S.–Pakistan engagement in the power sector.
Mirza recalls his own involvement in work supported by USAID in the early 1990s related to private-sector participation and restructuring of Pakistan’s power sector. He describes subsequent U.S. engagement in areas including sector reforms, grid-management studies, energy efficiency, investment facilitation, and battery-storage analysis.
For the purposes of The Energy Sphere, however, the discussion points toward an increasingly important forward-looking question: where can U.S. technology, expertise, and private investment contribute commercially to Pakistan’s power-sector needs?
Mirza identifies grid and distribution modernization, technology deployment, storage, planning, and research as areas with potential for further cooperation. His comments frame U.S.–Pakistan energy engagement around trade, investment, technology, and commercial partnerships—areas where U.S. companies can bring advanced solutions while exploring opportunities in Pakistan’s large and evolving market.
Learning from the U.S. Approach to Energy Research
Kazmi also brings her IVLP 2025 experience in the United States directly into the conversation.
During the exchange program, she and other participants engaged with U.S. energy institutions and observed how research and development can be embedded within the institutional and legal architecture of the energy sector.
She asks whether Pakistan could benefit from a similarly structured approach.
Mirza agrees that stronger institutionalized research and long-term planning are needed. He reflects on Pakistan’s historical cycles of electricity shortages followed by periods of surplus capacity and argues that stronger demand forecasting, integrated planning, and dedicated research could help produce more consistent long-term decisions.
While research is already undertaken by universities, think tanks, donors, and other organizations, Mirza argues that stronger institutional ownership could help connect research more directly with policymaking and sector planning.
This exchange illustrates one of the practical outcomes of U.S. exchange programs: alumni can bring observations from their professional exposure in the United States into conversations about policy, institutional practice, and economic development in Pakistan.
From an IVLP Conversation to a PUAN Grants Program Platform
The Energy Sphere itself grew from conversations among Pakistani participants during the 2025 International Visitor Leadership Program on Integrated Energy Planning for the Power and Petroleum Sectors in Pakistan. What began during their visit to North Dakota developed after their return into a podcast bringing together professionals from across the energy sector.
Through the PUAN Grants Program, Kazmi and her team are now developing that idea into a wider professional platform.
Episode 2 demonstrates the approach: combine the experience of U.S. exchange alumni with the knowledge of senior industry and policy professionals, then focus the conversation on concrete questions relevant to Pakistan’s economic future.
For businesses, policymakers, and professionals following Pakistan’s power sector, the discussion with Shah Jahan Mirza offers a particularly clear takeaway. Pakistan’s energy market has significant challenges, but those challenges are also generating demand for capital, technology, infrastructure, expertise, and new business models.
From modernizing the grid and distribution system to deploying smart meters, expanding energy storage, strengthening research and planning, and developing competitive electricity markets, the sector presents multiple areas where private enterprise can play a greater role.
As The Energy Sphere continues, the podcast will bring more voices into these conversations and explore the policies, technologies, investments, and commercial partnerships shaping Pakistan’s energy sector.
The Energy Sphere is implemented by IVLP 2025 alumna Barrister Sarah Kazmi under the PUAN Grants Program, with support from the U.S. Mission to Pakistan through the Pakistan-U.S. Alumni Network (PUAN).
