Bestway Cement now gets over a quarter of its plant power from solar

Olive and peach groves and plots of dry earth in Chakwal, in north-central Pakistan, are giving way to rows of photovoltaic panels. Bestway Cement says it will add 6.34 megawatts of new solar capacity by the end of the year, on top of the 26 MW already in place, according to reporting by the Financial Times that Ars Technica republished this week. Solar already supplies over a quarter of the electricity that runs the cement plant.

Abdul Waheed, the general manager at Chakwal, told the Financial Times the move is the only way the plant can compete, because rivals had already gone solar. The plant makes over 3 million tonnes of cement a year.

That is the detail worth pausing on. A cement plant is about as far from a rooftop hobby installation as a power consumer gets, and the justification offered is not sustainability. It is the competitor's electricity bill.

What 26 megawatts buys a cement plant

The Chakwal figures are unusually specific for an industrial self-generation project. Twenty-six megawatts of panels covering more than a quarter of the plant's electricity is a benchmark any energy-intensive manufacturer can hold against its own load, and the company says it will add another 6.34 MW of capacity by the end of the year, according to Ars Technica.

The FT reporting does not say what share of electricity the expanded array will cover, so the quarter figure is the current, measured result rather than a target. Ars Technica describes Bestway turning plots of dry earth and olive and peach groves in the Chakwal badlands into what it calls a forest of solar panels.

For an operator running a plant with comparable power draw, the useful comparison is not the megawatt count but the ratio. A quarter of consumption from 26 MW at a site producing over 3 million tonnes of cement a year is a reference point for what a company's own solar can carry at an industrial plant. A plant in a different climate, or with no land to build on, would need different math.

The competitive logic behind the panels

Waheed's framing, as reported by the Financial Times, matters more than the hardware. He did not describe solar as a hedge or a green commitment. "It's the only way we can compete," he said. "Our rivals have already gone in this direction."

That changes the question a plant manager or energy buyer has to answer. Once a rival's cost per tonne drops because it generates its own daytime power, the payback period on panels stops being an internal finance discussion and becomes a pricing problem. The FT piece describes Bestway and its rivals as part of millions of businesses and households worldwide that have installed panels, helped by a flood of cheap components from China.

Cheap panels are what make this a competitive dynamic rather than a niche one. When the input cost falls far enough, the first mover gets a cost advantage and everyone else in the same market has to follow or explain the gap to their customers. Bestway's own general manager is on record saying exactly that happened in Pakistani cement.

Academic work has made the same argument in the abstract. A paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, titled 'Low-cost solar power enables a sustainable energy industry system', framed inexpensive solar as a foundation for industrial energy supply rather than an add-on. Chakwal is what that looks like on the ground.

1.2 terawatts on paper, less in practice

The global context the FT attaches to the story is a single large number. Installed solar capacity worldwide reached almost 1.2 terawatts at the end of 2025, according to the Energy Institute's Statistical Review of World Energy, cited in the FT report. That equates to roughly three times the size of the global nuclear fleet by capacity.

The FT is careful to add the caveat that operators already know. Solar depends on sunlight, so it produces only a fraction of its theoretical potential. A terawatt of panels is not a terawatt of round-the-clock supply, and a comparison with nuclear on nameplate alone flatters solar's delivered energy.

The same caveat applies at Chakwal. The report gives no capacity factor for the site and no seasonal breakdown, and it does not say whether storage is part of the installation. A cement plant that gets over a quarter of its electricity from solar is still buying or generating the other three quarters some other way, and most of the solar share arrives in daylight hours.

For operators evaluating similar projects, that is the honest ceiling on the story. The Chakwal numbers show what a well-sited industrial array can cover. They do not show that a continuous-process plant can run on solar alone, and the FT does not claim it.

Who this benchmark is actually for

The Bestway example rests on what the report actually documents: a plant producing over 3 million tonnes of cement a year, a general manager who says solar is the only way it can compete, and rivals that he says have already gone in the same direction, according to Ars Technica. Other process industries may face similar pressures, but the FT report only documents this one plant.

For a plant leader whose site lacks the acreage, or whose competitors buy power on the same grid at the same tariff, the competitive pressure Waheed describes does not yet exist in the same form. The relevance is conditional on a rival having already made the move.

Where it does exist, the Chakwal case indicates the response is not gradual. Bestway is expanding an array that already covers a quarter of its load, and the general manager's stated reason is that the alternative is losing ground on price.

The next data point arrives at the end of 2026, when the 6.34 MW phase is due to come online and the plant's solar share can be measured again.