Pakistan set to hold first-ever auction to sell power at competitive price under CTBCM

Steps expected to help Pakistani exporters lower production costs, improve price competitiveness

KARACHI: In a major step toward liberalising its power sector, Pakistan is set to hold its first-ever auction to sell electricity at a competitive price to bulk consumers by November this year under the newly introduced Competitive Trading Bilateral Contract Market (CTBCM), with the name of winning power suppliers to be announced by January 2026.

“We will hold the auction [and announce its results] by end of January 2026,” Independent System and Market Operator (ISMO), Executive Director (Market Operations), Omer Haroon Malik, told a media outlet on the sidelines of a workshop titled ‘The Stakeholders Workshop: Understanding the Competitive Trading Bilateral Contracts Market’.

In his address to the workshop, Ministry of Energy (Power Division), Additional Secretary, Syed Imtiaz Ali Shah, said the targeted transparent auction and proper functioning of CTBCM would enable consumers to select electricity suppliers like they choose cellular service providers.

“We are moving on to multi-buyer and multi-seller model, breaking the hegemony of single-buyer [that is the government at present],” he said, adding CTBCM is going to benefit the entire power sector and industrial sector.

ISMO is a public sector organisation that was established in 2024. It is partially responsible to run CTBCM efficiently.

According to a senior representative of ISMO, who talked on the condition of anonymity, power distribution companies (Discos) presently operating in both the public and as well as in the private sectors are prohibited – at least for now – to participate in the multiple buyers and multiple sellers’ auction.

They also confirmed that the government has planned to hold the first-ever auction in late November 2025. “The names of winning power suppliers will be announced in December 2025 or latest by January 2026.”

The auction is expected to mark the beginning of the long-awaited transition away from the existing single-buyer, government-regulated power system, phasing out expensive and polluting power plants and introducing low-cost, renewable energy solutions.

These steps are expected to help Pakistani exporters lower production costs, improve price competitiveness, and meet the growing global demand to adopt clean and green energy to stay in world markets, speakers argued at the workshop.

The ISMO senior representative further said at least 15 entities operating in the private sector had applied for power suppliers/sellers’ licence at the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) to participate in the auction for CTBCM. The entities may be including Engro, Fatima, and Shams from the power sector. “The government has allocated only 800 megawatts to be sold by the new power producers at competitive price through the auction. Otherwise, there exists demand for over 4,000MW in CTBCM (which comes to about 16% of the existing demand at 26,000MW under the outdating sing-buyer regulated power system)”, ISMO official said. Monitoring Desk