Ali Asghar Textile Mills Ltd. (AATM) is about to make an uncharacteristically bright splash on Pakistan’s renewable-energy map. In a material-information notice uploaded to the Pakistan Stock Exchange on 16 May 2025, the Karachi-based logistics-and-warehousing company said its board has authorised construction of a 1,250-kilowatt (1.25 MW) grid-tied solar-photovoltaic plant that will sit on the rooftop and vacant setbacks of its Korangi Industrial Area campus. T
he array—five times larger than the 250 kW pilot AATM switched on two years ago—will be built in one phase, financed largely from internal cash and a concessionary “green-banking” loan the company has negotiated with JS Bank. First kWh are targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026.
On a national grid where generating units are usually measured in hundreds of megawatts, 1.25 MW may sound modest. Yet for an SME with a paid-up capital of barely ₨22 million and revenue of ₨66 million from its core logistics business last year, the venture is almost audacious.
To grasp why Ali Asghar Textile is betting so heavily on rooftop solar, one must revisit its transformation story. Founded in 1969 as a medium-scale ring-spinning mill, the company prospered through the 1980s on exports of coarse cotton yarn before the quota-free era ushered in ferocious competition from larger composite groups.
In 2011 the board took the rare decision to exit spinning altogether and repurpose the 20-acre Korangi site into a bonded warehousing and third-party logistics hub. A change in the company’s memorandum re-categorised its principal line of business; spinning frames were scrapped, and warehousing sheds rose in their place.
That pivot paid off: AATM’s other income—largely long-term rentals—hit Rs 226 million in FY-2024, dwarfing its operating revenue and propelling after-tax profit to Rs 100 million. Even so, a volatile grid tariff and frequent voltage sags ate into margins and alarmed prospective tenants like pharmaceutical major Getz Pharma, which demanded power-quality guarantees before signing a seven-year lease.
The firm’s first flirtation with photovoltaics came in late-2023 when it installed a 200 kW pilot array. According to slides from the 2024 corporate-briefing session, that system generated 520 MWh in its first 14 months and avoided 461 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.
Building on that success, the board drafted a staged expansion plan: jump to 250 kW in early-2024, then break the megawatt barrier once government permits cleared. Those licences finally arrived in Q1-2025, prompting the leap to 1.25 MW rather than the originally mooted 1 MW. The incremental 250 kW allows AATM to cover 100 percent of its peak daytime load, export a small surplus on Sundays, and future-proof the site against fully automated, refrigeration-heavy warehousing now being designed for biomedical clients.
Beyond cost arithmetic, the plant will slash AATM’s scope-2 emissions by about 1,450 tonnes of CO₂ a year, reinforcing its pitch to multinational tenants for whom decarbonised logistics capacity is becoming non-negotiable. The company already displays real-time solar dashboards in its client portal and aims to issue third-party-verified renewable-energy certificates once generation exceeds on-site demand. That green veneer dovetails with marketing efforts to attract IT firms to the two floors of shared office space in AATM’s new headquarters block.
AATM’s foray comes as corporate Pakistan, spooked by the highest power tariffs in South Asia and persistent grid instability, scrambles for embedded generation. Textile giants such as Yunus-Textile and Interloop now run 10–20 MW captive solar parks; food and personal-care firms are chasing similar schemes. Yet until now smaller listed companies rarely dared anything beyond a few hundred kilowatts. If Ali Asghar Textile succeeds, it could validate megawatt-scale rooftop solar as a viable hedge even for mid-cap enterprises.
The government’s net-metering regime, introduced in 2017, allows surplus solar power to be sold back to Disco networks at the National Average Power Purchase Price, adjusted annually. That framework underpins AATM’s pay-back calculus but is under review as the Ministry of Energy grapples with ballooning capacity charges. The company concedes that any sharp downward revision in the net-metering tariff could extend project pay-back by up to 18 months. Similarly, the interim ban on net-metering system sizes above 5 MW, imposed earlier this year, is a reminder that policy can both spur and stall corporate solar adoption.
Intriguingly, the board resolution hints at a “Phase II ground-mounted extension” on leased land outside Karachi should the 1.25 MW unit perform as modelled. That would push total capacity toward 3 MW and open the door to selling clean power to third-party off-takers under Pakistan’s new wheeling regulations. Such ambition would transform a once-humble spinning mill into a boutique independent power producer, albeit on the fringes of the energy market.
