ISLAMABAD: The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has approved 375.9m dollars in financing to strengthen Pakistan’s national power transmission network, a move aimed at reducing chronic power outages and accelerating the country’s transition to clean energy.
The funding will launch the Grid Stability Enhancement Project, which marks the first phase of a broader 10-year initiative titled Boosting Energy Security through Transmission in Pakistan (BEST-PAK). The program focuses on modernising a dilapidated electricity grid that has long hampered the country’s economic growth through frequent breakdowns and severe transmission bottlenecks.
“Pakistan’s energy challenges are deeply interconnected with its broader economic stability,” World Bank Country Director for Pakistan Bolormaa Amgaabazar said on Friday, noting that the infrastructure upgrades would ultimately help reduce electricity costs and lay the groundwork for a more sustainable power sector.
Unlocking stalled green energy
A primary objective of the project is to address major transmission constraints in southern Pakistan, where hundreds of megawatts of clean energy currently go to waste because the existing grid cannot handle the load.
By installing advanced equipment including Static Synchronous Compensators (STATCOMs) at three major 500 kV substations, alongside fixed reactors and capacitor banks across 26 other stations the project is expected to immediately bring 640 MW of currently curtailed wind energy into the national grid. This will allow the country to fully utilise 1,840 MW of wind capacity in the south by successfully moving power to major demand centres upcountry.
Furthermore, the upgrades will accommodate another 491 MW of planned private-sector renewable energy projects. Officials state this is a crucial step toward Pakistan’s climate commitment to achieve a 60 per cent renewable energy mix by 2030, a target that is projected to cut carbon emissions by over 20.8 million tons over the next 25 years.
Climate proofing and sector reforms
Waleed Saleh Alsuraih, the World Bank’s Lead Energy Specialist for the program, emphasized that the infrastructure investments would run alongside key institutional reforms.
The project is designed to support the government’s ongoing restructuring of the National Transmission & Dispatch Company (NTDC) into specialized successor entities to improve governance and attract future private capital.
Crucially, given Pakistan’s high vulnerability to extreme weather events, the new grid infrastructure will be built to strict climate-resilient specifications. Following successive years of devastating floods and record-breaking summer temperatures, all new installations will feature elevated platforms to mitigate flood risks and equipment specifically rated to operate safely in extreme heat of up to 55°C.