Lucky Cement Gets Pakistan's First n-Type Solar Plant

Pakistan's largest cement manufacturer, Lucky Cement has taken strides towards a more sustainable business impact with a 26 MW solar plant on its land in Pakistan. The project, executed by JA Solar and Orient Energy Systems is Pakistan's first n-type photovoltaic (PV) power plant project. Since its commissioning in September 2023, the plant has met key operational expectations from the client.

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Established in 1996, Orient Energy Systems is one of the top three PV EPC contractors in Pakistan, providing specialized one-stop PV power solutions.

The 26 MW project for Lucky Cement, which adopts JA Solar's n-type high-efficiency modules, is JA Solar's first shipment of n-type modules in Pakistan, and is also the first PV power plant in Pakistan to adopt n-type modules. The project adopts a "self-generation and self-consumption" model to meet the plant's power needs, realizing self-sufficiency in energy and effectively reducing energy costs. At the same time, cement manufacturing is a highly energy-consuming industry, the application of PV helps to reduce fossil energy consumption, reduce carbon emissions, and promote the green transformation of energy-consuming industries.

The project is located in a desert area in Pakistan on land owned by Lucky Cement, where JA Solar's n-type modules promise lower degradation, better temperature coefficient, higher bifacial power generation gains, and better low irradiance performance, which allow them to generate higher power generation gains even when operating in high-temperature environments in the desert. In addition, the higher ground reflectivity of the local area also allows JA Solar's n-type modules to generate more back-side power gains.

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The move by Lucky Cement is bound to lay the marker for both cement firms in Pakistan, besides other industries, as they seek dependable power as well as lower power costs. Both have been an issue in the country for the past year and more, as a balance of payments crisis and depreciation of the local currency drove up power costs to levels considered unviable by many. Pakistan depends on imports for most of its energy requirements, despite the presence of large gas fields as well as Coal, especially in the Sind province. The country has been an absolute underperformer on renewable energy uptake, counting mostly on Hydro power even as rainfall patterns are shifting.