News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand ... by toomuchtodo on Thursday November 27, 2025 @02:14PM (#46072350)
It is unfortunate that the government of Pakistan and their investors (China and the IMF) made poor investment decisions. They should feel free to go back to debt holders to renegotiate the debt, or default on it and hand the stranded assets back to creditors. The death spiral is of their own making, and will only accelerate as solar PV and battery cost declines continue. Electricity consumers will simply go off the grid. Such is the risk of unsophisticated investors not understanding the market in which they invest. Capital being at risk is an inherent component of investment.

My condolences and sympathy to the people of Pakistan caught in the mess. The global energy transition will be volatile.

Solar electricity every hour of every day is here and it changes everything - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e... - June 21st, 2025

Stranded fossil-fuel assets translate to major losses for investors in advanced economies - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01356-y | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01356-y - May 26th, 2022

Rethinking Energy -- 100% Solar, Wind and Batteries Is Just The Beginning - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM2RxWtF4Ds - January 2021

Who owns the distressed fossil generation collateralized debt? China. Where is Pakistan importing cleantech from? China. There is some IMF debt in there as well, for accuracy.

How Chinese loans trapped Pakistan's economy - https://www.dw.com/en/how-chinese-loans-trapped-pakistans-ec... - August 2nd, 2024

Emeber Energy: China Cleantech Exports Data Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... (updated monthly)

Re:Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand ... by throwaway2037 on Thursday November 27, 2025 @06:33PM (#46074130)

    > default on it and hand the stranded assets back to creditors
I doubt the debt is secured by the power assets. If anything, maybe China can assume ownership of the entire powerplant if Pakistan cannot pay. They have done that many times in Africa. See: "debt-trap diplomacy". Also, it is terrible advice to tell a country to default on external debt. See: Argentina!
Re:Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand ... by toomuchtodo on Thursday November 27, 2025 @07:09PM (#46074357)
Argentina has defaulted nine times in its history. One or two times is not material, based on historical observations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_debt_crises

Re:Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand ... by JumpCrisscross on Thursday November 27, 2025 @07:24PM (#46074432)
> Argentina has defaulted nine times in its history

Argentina doesn’t make a habit of hosting its creditors’ troops [1].

[1] http://eng.mod.gov.cn/xb/News_213114/TopStories/16353167.htm...