By Syed Marwan Shah ISLAMABAD, May 26 (INP-WealthPK): Pakistan can better tackle the ongoing energy crisis by promoting ‘peak shaving’ mechanism among both residential and commercial consumers. During peak shaving, overall electricity consumption is reduced or ‘shaved’. “To tackle the energy crisis in the country, peak shaving or a smart load management system is direly required,” Syed Mujahid Shah, a senior electrical engineer at National Engineering Services Pakistan (NESPAK), told WealthPK during an interview. He said that solar panels with net metering were considered one of the best options to achieve peak shaving. Excess energy created by the solar panels during the day can be used during the peak hours. “Even if we do not have net metering mechanism, we can store the excess energy in battery packs.” Mujahid Shah further said that peak shaving not only reduced the cost of electricity for consumers during the peak loads but also reduced load on the national grid by using battery packs connected to the utility. The NESPAK electrical engineer said the benefits of operating storage were spread across a number of stakeholders. Utilisation of rooftop solar photovoltaics (PV) coupled with battery storage can alleviate the consumers’ dependence on the national grid, which means their electricity bills would be reduced. He said that peak demand could be reduced on a national level, thereby reducing the country's generation capacity requirements and potentially doing away with CO2-emitting power plants. He said that peak shaving can also be achieved using an alternative localised power source such as an on-site generator during peak times; but that did not seem to be a viable option since a generator system ran on fuel, which might be beyond one’s financial capacity. He advocated utilising solar energy with a battery or with a net metering system – provided by the local distribution company. This peak load shaving method helps reduce dependence on the grid and also reduces the cost of electricity because the excess energy created by the solar panels is stored in the battery and is used in the peak loads when required. Monitoring and regulating peak loads are also important components of this process.