Pakistan, Oct. 9 -- For decades, Pakistan had a simple explanation for its electricity crisis: we did not have enough electricity.

There was load-shedding, factories running generators, and summer evenings spent waiting for fans to start turning again. The solution seemed equally simple: build power plants.

And Pakistan did. Coal, LNG, gas, nuclear and hydropower capacity was added, independent power producers were contracted and transmission projects undertaken.

Pakistan eventually built enough generation capacity to eliminate the simple explanation for load-shedding.

Yet load-shedding did not disappear.

That may be the clearest sign of what went wrong. Pakistan can now have idle power plants and dark homes at the same time. Accordi...