After years of rolling blackouts that have wreaked havoc on industry and fuelled political unrest, energy-starved Pakistan has set its sights on a coal-fired future.
Regarded as the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, recent discoveries of untapped coal fields in southern Pakistan have convinced the government they could be on the cusp of a solution to their energy woes.
Late last month, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his former rival, ex-president Asif Ali Zardari jointly inaugurated the construction of a $US1.6 billion ($A1.78 billion) coal plant the southern town of Thar, hailing their shared goal of ending the country's power crisis.
The government has also green-lighted the construction of a pilot 660 megawatt coal-fired plant in Gadani, a small, serene town known as Pakistan's ship-breaking hub.
A 600 megawatt plant has also been given the go-ahead in the southern city of Jamshoro.
The construction of these plants is one plank in an ambitious plan to convert many of the country's existing oil-based thermal plants and upgrade its ports as they begin swapping one black gold for another.
"This is a major and historic fuel switching plan as we generate zero from coal, compared to India which generates 69 per cent of its electricity from coal-fired power plants," Pakistan's minister for power and water Khwaja Asif said.
Pakistan has struggled with scheduled power cuts for decades.
But the problems have been particularly acute since 2008, with regular outages of up to 22 hours a day for many domestic users and even longer for industries - costing about two per cent of GDP per year.
In the hot summer, when temperatures soar to 50C in the country's centre, Pakistan produces around 18,000 MW of power, with an average deficit of 4000 MW.
A lack of capacity together with huge debt cycles exacerbated by poor rates of tax collection are seen as some of the major factors contributing to the country's power shortages.
The issue was also a central campaign theme in last year's general elections, in which Nawaz Sharif was elected to the top post.
Faced with a growing bill for imported oil that currently stands at $US14 billion ($A15.54 billion) and a rapidly depleting supply of natural gas, the country's private and public plants are switching their oil-plants over to coal.
"Pakistan has been facing rising oil prices and declining gas reserves as well as a tight foreign account situation, rendering the reliance on the import of oil to fuel power plants increasingly unaffordable," the Asian Development Bank said in a statement.
