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Energy planning rarely makes headlines. It is the domain of engineers, regulators, and economists, a world
of capacity projections, discount rates, and generation-mix charts. Most citizens encounter it only
indirectly: when electricity bills spike, when load-shedding returns, or when a new dam displaces their
neighbors.
Yet inside those technical documents, consequential decisions are made about which provinces receive
investment and which are bypassed, which communities bear the costs of the country’s development, and
what kind of energy system Pakistan will inherit for the next ten to twenty years. One such document is
the Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan (IGCEP). Today, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is in direct
confrontation with it and the confrontation exposes a deeper question this paper takes up: not merely
whether two hydropower projects were treated fairly, but what a province that generates a large share of
the country’s hydro power, yet consumes the least of it per head, should actually build next.