Power outages of up to 12 hours hit country

ISLAMABAD: Following the non-availability of required fuel for power generation and non-maintenance of some important power plants, the power outages that severely hit the masses across the country during the holy month of Ramazan have further increased up to 10-12 hours, making the lives of people miserable even at the time of Iftari and Sehri.

"The less production of hydro power in the wake of no improvement in water flows into the system and no rain spell coupled with an increase in demand of electricity, because of surge in mercury, which has increased to 19,000MW at peak hours, have also aggravated the electricity availability crisis. However, the demand during the day time stands 16,000 MW,” Power Division officials said.

However, according to official details, the system is producing right now 12,000 MW electricity during day time and at peak hours starting from Iftari to Sehri, 16,000 MW, knowing the fact that the country has an installed capacity of electricity of over 39,000 MW.

All the urban centers such as Karachi, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Sialkot have been severely hit with 4-10 hours loadshedding and rural areas 10-12. In Karachi, 3-4 hours loadshedding is underway because of a reduction in electricity supply from the national grid by 300MW. In Interior Sindh, the loadshedding currently stands at 10-12 hours. In Rawalpindi, power outages hovered around 4-5 hours. The dwellers in Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Sialkot and their rural areas are also experiencing power outages from 4-10 hours. However, some areas are also facing loadshedding but at a bearable level.

In Lahore and its suburbs, the loadshedding stands at 4-10 hours. In the jurisdiction of MEPCO, power outages have increased to 12 hours. In Balochistan, the electricity loadshedding has surged to 10-12 hours. KPK is also facing power outages from 6-12 hours.

The Water resources ministry says that Wapda has the installed capacity to generate electricity of 9,400 MW out of which during peak hours, hydro generation currently stands at 4,700 MW whereas the average production of hydel stands at 3,400 MW. The system is getting from Tarbela Dam just an average 762 MW, Mangla 433 MW, Warsak 111 MW because of no improvement in water flows. However, the Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower project is producing electricity of 968 MW and Ghazi Barotha hydropower project 644 MW on average.

Liberty Power of 210 MW, Rousch of 410 MW, Nandipur of 525 MW, FKPCL 140 MW and nine units of Faisalabad GTPS have not been producing electricity for non-availability of RLNG for the last four months, from Dec 12, 2021.

HCPC of 120 MW has also been dysfunctional since Oct 4, 2019, owing to expiry of its gas supply agreement. Two units of Jamshoro Power House of 549 MW and four units of Muzaffargarh of 840 MW have been non-functional since April 8 and 9, 2022, for a lack of furnace oil. The unit-2 of the Sahiwal power plant based on coal has not been producing electricity of 621 MW since April 20, 2022, for lack of imported coal. However, 18 power plants having a capacity of 3,605 MW have been non-functional because of technical faults and non-maintenance.