Netline planned a 180 MW solar panel plant, and its own sums show what it would need

A factory that assembles 180 MW of solar modules a year has to turn out about 1,100 of them every working day (180 million watts, divided by 550 watts a module and 300 days). In December 2022 Netline, a Karachi power equipment firm, said it would build such a factory on three acres near Islamabad, in three phases costing nearly $30 million, with production due in the second half of 2023. No report found since early 2023 gives an opening date or an output figure. The plan itself is more revealing than its schedule: it describes an assembly line first, and a chain of other factories that the line would depend on.

From UPS distributor to solar contractor

Netline is a family owned business founded in 2002 by Iqbal Zavary, its chairman. It began as a distributor of small uninterruptible power supply units, known as UPS, and Cummins generators. Its solar department opened in 2007 with a 5 kW system at Sukkur University. By December 2022 the company said it had installed more than 10 MW at about 400 sites, from Skardu to Karachi, and it lists offices in Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

Its biggest named job is a 2.5 MW rooftop plant at Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University in Rawalpindi, which a Netline director described in 2021 as a $2.5 million project. The university put up no money. It pays Netline a per unit tariff under a power purchase agreement, Netline maintains the plant for 25 years, and surplus power is adjusted against the utility bill through net metering. Netline owns the asset and sells the electricity, so its earnings depend on the plant running well for a quarter of a century, not on a single sale.

In December 2022 Netline announced a Series A round from what it called a leading logistics and freight company, which it did not name, and did not disclose the amount. Intermarket Securities, a Karachi brokerage, valued the company independently at $4.5 million. The Zavary family kept a majority stake and management control. The stated uses were offices in the Gulf, lithium ion batteries and electric vehicle charging. The plant was a separate, larger plan.

What the plant plan says

Phase 1 would cost $3.5 million, assemble modules on a three acre industrial estate and have a capacity of 180 MW a year, with production due in the third or fourth quarter of 2023. Phase 2 would cost $5 million, be complete by the end of 2024 and use technology from a Turkish company, which Netline described as a joint venture partner without naming it. The company also targeted a main board stock exchange listing in 2024, which one report said might help fund this phase. Phase 3, from 2026, would spend $20 million on mining quartz, which is refined into silicon. The three amounts add up to $28.5 million, matching the nearly $30 million Netline gave in January 2023.

The plan was not new. In a March 2021 interview a Netline director said the company was already setting up a panel factory, and noted that India had more than 70 panel plants while Pakistan had almost none.

The sums behind the plan

Start with scale. Ember data, as analysed by Renewables First, shows Pakistan took in 16.6 GW of Chinese solar equipment in 2024, up from 2.5 GW in 2021. A plant making 180 MW a year would supply 1.1 percent of the 2024 total (180 divided by 16,600). Measured against the 2021 market, when Netline said it was already setting up a factory, the same plant would have been 7.2 percent (180 divided by 2,500). The market has grown more than six times since Netline first said it was setting up a factory.

Now money. Renewables First put the average price of a panel at 17 cents a watt in 2024. At that price a year of output is worth about $30.6 million (180 million watts times $0.17), and that is revenue, not profit. The Phase 1 budget of $3.5 million is about 1.9 cents for each watt of annual capacity (3.5 million divided by 180 million). That tells a reader what is being bought: an assembly line, not a cell maker.

An assembly line has a short list of machines. A stringer solders solar cells into strings, a layup station arranges the strings between glass and a polymer sheet, a laminator bonds the stack under heat, and the module is then framed and tested. The cells are the most technology intensive and costly part of a module, and they, the glass and the frames would come from outside. The assembler's margin is therefore the gap between the module price and the cost of bought in parts, and Netline has published neither its input costs nor how it would secure cells.

Phase 3 shows how long the chain is. Quartz must be refined into polysilicon, grown into ingots, sliced into wafers and made into cells before a module can be built, and mining is only the first step. The $20 million for it is about 70 percent of the plan (20 divided by 28.5). Netline said the mine would help it make panels entirely in Pakistan. A mine alone would not: each later stage is a separate, capital heavy plant.

Netline also said it would ask the government to allow duty free imports of solar glass for two to three years while local production develops. That request shows where the plan is exposed. A factory that imports cells and glass is sensitive to how those inputs are taxed compared with finished modules, a policy Netline cannot set.

Work abroad

Netline has pursued contracts in Saudi Arabia. It said in December 2022 that it had won a $3 million contract to design the electrical system for NEOM, the Saudi city under construction. In early 2023 it signed an agreement with Tamheed Energy of Saudi Arabia for solar projects totalling 20 MW and worth $10 million. The 20 MW is larger than everything Netline says it had installed in Pakistan since 2007, and equal to 11 percent of the plant's annual capacity (20 divided by 180). Contract terms, timelines and completion have not been published, and the figures come from Netline's own statements.

That work fits the company's record in engineering and project delivery better than panel manufacturing does.

What is unknown

Netline has not said whether it has bought machinery, formed the Turkish joint venture under a named company, or begun construction. The investor behind the Series A is unnamed and the amount is undisclosed. No report found mentions a stock exchange filing.

Pakistani buyers would gain if local modules came in cheaper than imports, and the Zavary family would own a larger business than the one it started. Neither depends on the factory alone, since modules already sell at 17 cents a watt. The plan dated the stock exchange listing to 2024 and the quartz phase to 2026. A main board listing would require a prospectus with audited accounts, the first outside look at Netline's finances.