Pakistan's power regulator has made battery storage compulsory in an 800 MW wind and solar auction. Bidders must pair storage worth at least 10% of their firm capacity, and the system operator issues the first 400 MW tender this month.
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The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra), Pakistan's electricity regulator, has cleared the government to make battery storage a condition of bidding in an 800 MW wind and solar auction. The rule arrives through three amendments to the wheeling auction process, approved on Friday, and it lets the Independent System Operator (Ismo), a subsidiary of the power division, put the first 400 MW block out to tender this month.
Bidders must commit to storage equal to at least 10% of the firm capacity of the wind or solar plant they propose, sited at the generation facility itself. They may build more than that. Ismo's modelling found that returns improve as storage capacity rises, up to a point, and the 10% floor was settled after feedback from the companies that are expected to bid.
Behind the rule is the duck curve. Solar users drop off the grid through the day and come back in the evening, and the swing leaves the system short exactly as demand climbs. Nepra approved the mandate to steady supply against that pattern, after a government decision in July to make storage a requirement rather than a choice.
At a 10% floor, the first block implies at least 40 MW of storage against the 400 MW on offer, and 80 MW across the full programme, although the rule is written against each plant's firm capacity rather than the auction headline.
The auction is Pakistan's first in more than three decades, and the government has cast it as a step toward a competitive electricity market. Ministers are still settling the bidding timetable with the private sector.
Ismo told the regulator that two approaches are in use internationally. Mature markets publish the data and leave the choice to developers, while developing markets write the requirement into the rules. India, the Philippines, China and the Dominican Republic have all taken the second route.
Bidders in the first auction get two months from the day the request for proposals appears, a window Nepra has fixed and will not extend. Later auctions run to one month. Ismo asked for the longer first window because it expects many bidders to seek more time.
The amendments also create a three-member panel to hear complaints about the auction, chaired by the managing director of the Private Power and Infrastructure Board and filled out by two independent directors from Ismo's board. Until now the auction committee judged both eligibility and the complaints about its own judgements, and bidders had pressed for a separate forum to remove the conflict.