Stakeholders call for viable power market to sustain textile competitiveness

FAISALABAD: The power-market reforms must ultimately deliver a commercially workable, reliable and transparent energy system if the country’s export-oriented textile sector is to remain competitive while meeting growing demands for energy efficiency, renewable-energy integration and industrial decarbonisation, stakeholders said.
They were speaking at a stakeholder dialogue titled “Threads of Accountability: Traceability and Energy Policy for Textile Competitiveness”, organised by Alternate Development Services (ADS). The event brought together textile manufacturers, power-sector professionals, sustainability and verification specialists, business representatives and renewable-energy stakeholders to examine the practical implications of Pakistan’s changing power market and the energy transition of the textile industry.
The dialogue focused on two interconnected areas: textile-sector ESG compliance, traceability and measurement, reporting and verification (MRV), and the transformation of the power market, energy security, fuel-mix resilience and industrial decarbonisation.
The participants examined how Pakistan’s textile sector can navigate power-market reforms and a changing energy system while maintaining competitiveness and meeting increasingly stringent sustainability, traceability and environmental-performance requirements.
Opening the event, ADS Chief Executive Amjad Nazeer introduced the Shared Transition Responsibility Movement (STRM), which seeks to distribute the financial and technical burden of industrial decarbonisation more equitably among manufacturers, brands and financiers.
He stressed the need to move beyond compliance-only relationships towards shared investment, technical assistance, long-term procurement arrangements and credible monitoring and reporting mechanisms.
A major focus of the first session was Pakistan’s emerging competitive power market and its implications for industrial consumers. Muhammad Usman Bin Ahmed, Energy Transition Officer at ADS, delivered a keynote on Power Market Transformation (CTBCM) for Industrial Competitiveness and later moderated two panel discussions.
His presentation examined the practical pathway for industrial participation in the competitive market, including eligibility, competitive procurement, bilateral contracting and wheeling. He also highlighted key commercial and operational considerations, including Use of System Charges (UoSC), security and performance guarantees, SMP exposure, balancing and settlement, hybrid bulk-power-consumer arrangements and firm-capacity requirements for renewable energy supply.
He also presented a CTBCM readiness toolkit aimed at helping industrial consumers understand the requirements and practical considerations associated with market participation.
Particular attention was given to the commercial realities of wheeling. Analysis presented at the dialogue noted that NEPRA’s September 2026 determination places the effective UoSC at Rs9.46 per kWh for B-3 consumers and Rs12.32 per kWh for B-4 consumers, including Rs3.23 per kWh in Distribution of Subsidy Surcharge (DSS).
The power-market panel featured Syed Iftikhar Ali, a power-sector professional; Saham Qamar, Director of PowerMatrix; and Hasnat Khan, Senior Vice Chairman of PSA. The panel provided utility, technical, industrial and renewable-energy perspectives on the reform process.
Discussions centred on network capability, metering and settlement infrastructure, transmission constraints, UoSC, predictability and the commercial conditions required for meaningful industrial participation in the emerging market.
Rehan Javed, Head of the Energy Advisory Committee at FPCCI, presented an industry-oriented assessment of Pakistan’s wider power-sector cost structure and its implications for market reform.
He highlighted major cost pressures within the country’s generation portfolio, citing a combined Rs2.899 trillion increase in the disclosed costs of five major hydropower projects, with individual project cost overruns ranging from 21% to 285%.
Dasu, for instance, was cited as having an approved cost of Rs486 billion compared with a current cost of Rs1.737 trillion, representing a 257% increase.
The dialogue also included practical industry experience of the emerging competitive power market. Mustafa Abdullah of Moro Power, who has first-hand experience of the competitive power-market auction, shared insights from the perspective of an industry stakeholder engaging with the new market mechanism.
A broader industry and trade perspective was provided by Muhammad Naeem Qureshi, Managing Editor of Energy Update and President of the National Forum for Environment and Health. He linked the technical discussions on power-market reform with wider questions concerning industrial energy management, electricity and gas costs, resource allocation and energy-sector reform.
Asim Riaz, Energy Advisor at APTMA, connected power-market reform with the wider competitiveness challenges facing Pakistan’s textile sector. He discussed changing national and global energy markets, gas-market liberalisation, captive generation, energy efficiency, renewable integration and the economics of industrial energy supply.
He stressed that energy-transition decisions cannot be separated from production economics and the efficient allocation of industrial resources.
The dialogue also examined the growing importance of ESG compliance, traceability and credible environmental data for textile exporters.
Mehwish Ansari, Manager Sustainability and ESG at Artistic Milliners, highlighted factory-level sustainability implementation and the importance of reliable operational data. Sajeel Sohail of Green Story discussed digital traceability, life-cycle data and emerging product-level information requirements, while Raazia Anum of SGS provided a verification, assurance and compliance perspective.
Participants identified fragmented data, limited verification capacity and inconsistencies in reporting as persistent challenges. They stressed the need to establish stronger links between factory-level operational information and credible sustainability claims made by textile exporters.
The dialogue further explored the relationship between power-market reform, energy security and industrial decarbonisation.
Abdul Haseeb Tariq of ADS presented an integrated perspective on textile-sector energy systems, while Saqib Sohail, ESG Advisor and Consultant at Up Front Textiles, discussed the relationship between energy management, ESG expectations and decarbonisation.
The discussion also featured perspectives from Raghib Ali Khan, Sustainability Lead at IKEA; Hussain Rizvi of the Climate Action Center; and Syed Iftikhar Ali.
Participants emphasised that credible decarbonisation should begin with measurement, energy efficiency and process optimisation, including waste-heat recovery, before progressing towards electrification, renewable-energy generation and storage where appropriate.
The panel also highlighted the need for utilities to adapt to distributed generation and increasingly complex electricity flows through improved monitoring, data systems and network planning.
Stakeholders said Pakistan’s textile industry needs more than access to new electricity procurement models and renewable-energy options to successfully navigate the transition. Transparent pricing, reliable networks, credible data, appropriate allocation of risks, storage and firm-capacity solutions, and stronger institutional coordination would also be essential.
The dialogue concluded that power-market reform, industrial competitiveness, energy security and decarbonisation should be treated as interconnected challenges rather than separate policy issues.
The central message emerging from the discussions was that opening the power market alone would not constitute a successful transition. The reform would ultimately have to translate into a commercially viable, reliable and transparent energy system capable of supporting productive industry and Pakistan’s export-oriented textile sector.
The event was supported by ADS team members Ashfa Ashraf, Mashhood Urfi, Khadija Zahra and Muhammad Asad Khan, who coordinated and facilitated the dialogue.