#Watch #Chaudhry #Solar #foryou: Hotwiring rural Punjab

Muhammad Nazam pulls his smartphone from his kurta pocket, opens the YouTube app and plays a tutorial. “It’s not that difficult, you know,” he says. “It’s just two wires: one is hot, and one is cold. ” That’s how he installed solar panels a year ago for his tubewell in Qila Mian Singh, Punjab. His neighbour Salim Mehr, clarifies, “When it’s installed, then everyone gets the experience. Everyone knows which wire is which, which button to press, how much to run it on, how many units are showing up, how much electricity there is. ” This is the part of Pakistan’s solar revolution that didn’t make it to international headlines. News feature after feature marvelled at an energy transition motivated less by climate worries and more by the state’s persistent inability to provide electricity people could rely on and afford. (China’s untrammelled ability to provide cheap imports was a decisive factor.

) It made sense that rich city households were rigging up, but what was driving the wildfire uptake across the countryside where, according to thinktank Ember Energy , 73 per cent of panel owners are now located. A singular panel propped up by a table in a market in Muzaffargarh Turns out there are two unexpected mechanisms at work: the effect of seeing a Chaudary install it and the ease of figuring out how to do it. Muhammad Imran and Muhammad Rizwan, for example, living half a province away from each other, had identical experiences with their solar PV installation. They asked the shopkeeper how to do it, watched a couple of TikTok videos, and did it themselves within an hour. All Obaid Ullah needed was TikTok to set up his single panel at his kiryana or corner shop. “It’s not a problem,” he says. “It’s very easy. ” The panel, which is propped up with a stick, now powers a small…