Ambassador Jean-Noël Poirier tells National Grid Pakistan that French companies want into transmission, a sector where cheap power is stranded and a key Lahore substation is still unfinished.
LAHORE: French companies are interested in investing in Pakistan’s power transmission network, France’s ambassador said on Wednesday at WAPDA House Lahore, as the state grid operator prepares to fast-track battery storage to absorb a surge of solar and wind power that its overloaded lines cannot always carry.
Ambassador Jean-Noël Poirier led a five-member delegation to WAPDA House for talks with Engineer Altaf Hussain Malik, managing director of National Grid Pakistan, the transmission company carved out of the former National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC). The two sides discussed foreign investment in transmission, renewable integration, battery energy storage systems and institutional development, along with the prospect of manufacturing grid equipment locally.
Neither side named the French companies involved, put a value on any investment, or announced an agreement. Poirier said he was confident of a long-term partnership with the Pakistani utility.
Power on paper, stuck on the wires
Malik told the delegation that Pakistan has vast generation capacity and that the network is being strengthened to bring more renewable energy into the national system. The gap between the two is the sector’s central problem.
In its review of the 2024-25 fiscal year, the power regulator NEPRA found that 116 of 192 transformers at 68 grid stations were running above 80pc of their rated capacity, and that overloaded 500kV substations at Jamshoro and Matiari were holding power flows to about 1,800MW against 4,500MW available, Dawn reported in January. As a result, up to 1,750MW of cheaper electricity was curtailed while costlier plants ran.
Lahore sits at the far end of one of the clearest bottlenecks. The 878km Matiari-Lahore high-voltage direct current line, rated at 4,000MW and commissioned in 2021, carried an average of about 1,400MW last fiscal year, a utilisation rate of 35pc, according to the same NEPRA review, which blamed delays on the Lahore North 500kV substation. Economists Nadeem ul Haque and Shahid Sattar, writing in Business Recorder in April, put that substation’s cost at about Rs20.7bn, a fraction of what the country pays each year in capacity payments to generators.
For Lahore households, the weakness shows up as night-time outages when solar output fades and the system leans on imported gas that has been in short supply since the Gulf conflict disrupted shipping.
Batteries move up the list
Malik briefed the French team on plans to introduce battery energy storage systems on a fast-track basis and expand them later. He did not give capacity figures or sites.
Energy Minister Awais Leghari ordered officials in early September to secure sites at shortlisted grid stations and finish technical studies and tender documents within a week, Arab News reported, with National Grid tasked with identifying transmission-level locations to be commissioned within two years. A battery project at Jhimpir, the Sindh wind corridor, is due for completion by the end of 2026, the report said.
The push is partly a response to rooftop solar, with net-metered capacity reaching 7,319MW by March, according to the government’s Economic Survey. In Lahore, solar users have been left waiting as LESCO ran short of net-metering meters, and the provincial government has floated battery-backed solar pilots for three industrial zones.
France’s existing stake
The French interest is not new. France’s development agency, Agence Française de Développement (AFD), signed a €180m credit facility for NTDC projects in Punjab after the 2023 Geneva conference on climate-resilient Pakistan, covering a new 220kV substation at Aarifwala, an upgrade of Vehari to 500kV and a new 500kV substation at Sialkot, according to Business Recorder.
An AFD delegation led by its Asia director, Cyrille Bellier, visited the same WAPDA House offices in December and showed interest in financing the Ludewala upgrade, state news agency APP reported. Haque and Sattar estimated the Ludewala package at about Rs67.3bn.
What Wednesday’s talks added was a private-sector signal. Transmission in Pakistan has been almost entirely state-owned and financed by development lenders, and the government has been reworking grid charges to prepare for a competitive wholesale market. Any direct French investment would need a commercial model that does not yet exist at scale.
Equipment and the workforce
The discussion on local manufacturing touches a sensitive cost line. Transformers, switchgear and cables are largely imported, exposing grid projects to currency swings, and domestic production has been a long-standing aim of energy planners.
Malik also outlined National Grid’s measures on women’s empowerment, gender equality and employee safety and welfare. He described its “Awaz” forum as an important channel for resolving the issues of women employees and giving them equal opportunities, a point likely to resonate with development financiers that attach governance and gender conditions to lending.
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