KARACHI, Pakistan — K-Electric enters the 2026 summer build-up facing a two-sided vulnerability: its own generation remains tied to expensive regasified liquefied natural gas, or RLNG, while its growing dependence on imported power from the national grid leaves Karachi exposed to supply and transmission constraints beyond the utility’s control, just as Pakistan’s peak demand is expected to reach 27-28 gigawatts in the coming weeks, April 8, 2026.
At the national level, the picture has improved. Reuters reported in March that Pakistan now gets about 74% of its electricity from domestic sources and that LNG accounts for roughly 10% of total generation, mostly for evening peaks and grid stabilisation. That is an important buffer for the country, but it does not erase Karachi’s more specific exposure inside the K-Electric system.
Why K-Electric still looks exposed
Nepra’s annual performance report, as cited by Dawn, said it is technically feasible for K-Electric to draw 2,000 MW from the national grid under the current configuration. But the same report said the utility’s take-or-pay RLNG arrangements and related part-load costs still shape how much power it imports and how much it generates itself. In practical terms, cheaper grid electricity helps Karachi, but it does not fully break the city’s link to expensive gas-based economics.
The balancing act is tight. In K-Electric’s 2025 year-end review, the company said Karachi’s peak demand hit 3,563 MW in June 2025 while peak supply reached 3,545 MW, and that off-take capacity from the national grid had risen to as much as 2,000 MW. The same update also pointed to 640 MW of renewable projects priced at Rs8.9 to Rs11.6 per unit, but those additions remain part of the medium-term pipeline rather than a ready-made shield for the coming hot months.
The broader summer environment is also getting harsher. In its recent report on Pakistan’s summer power outlook, Dawn said officials were preparing for higher bills and possible power cuts if fuel stress deepens, with analysts warning that a prolonged LNG disruption could push tariffs up by Rs6 to Rs8 per unit. For Karachi, that pressure matters more than in many other markets because K-Electric’s cost problem is concentrated in RLNG and in how much cheaper power it can reliably pull from elsewhere.
This K-Electric warning has been building for years
Karachi has seen versions of this stress test before. Back in June 2020, federal officials blamed system constraints after K-Electric said a 50 mmcfd reduction in RLNG had worsened outages during peak heat. In May 2022, Business Recorder reported that gas and pressure shortages had pushed KE’s base tariff to Rs31 per kWh, with the utility arguing the figure would have been far lower if committed gas volumes had been supplied. And in January 2025, Dawn reported that Nepra openly questioned why K-Electric still needed a generation licence if about 67% of its supply was already coming from the national grid. The pattern is hard to ignore: Karachi’s summer strain keeps resurfacing when gas becomes costly, grid imports rise, or both happen at once.
What matters now for K-Electric and Karachi
The short-term relief case is straightforward: keep cheaper grid electricity flowing and avoid a fresh squeeze on local gas. The bigger problem is that neither answer fully changes Karachi’s structural exposure. As long as K-Electric leans on RLNG for a meaningful share of its dispatch and on the national grid for a large share of its cheaper supply, the city remains vulnerable to the same twin shock — imported fuel volatility and supply dependence outside the utility’s direct control.
That is why the real test this summer is not whether enough megawatts exist somewhere on paper. It is whether K-Electric can keep Karachi supplied without getting squeezed between expensive RLNG, limited gas flexibility and a grid it does not run.
