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LAHORE: The rural areas continue suffering over 16 hours loadshedding as the demand-supply gap widened to over 7,100MW, and the government decided to save major cities from inconvenience as much as it could because of socio-political reasons.
Against a demand of over 21,000MW (excluding K-Electric) on Monday evening, the total generation was recorded at 12,900MW – a gap of 7,100MW.
According to the calculations made by Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) officials, this gap, on average, should translate into just under 12-hour loadshedding at national level.
“But since the government has ordered (the company) to restrict (outages) in the major cities like Lahore to seven hours only, the load is naturally transferred to rural areas,” explains a Pepco official. “These cities are power guzzlers; only Lahore region accounts for around 25per cent of national supplies. If one has to save Lahore, which the power planners have been instructed to do, loadshedding in the rest of the country would go up by 15pc. Make similar calculations for other politically and socially ‘sensitive’ cities and it is not hard to understand disastrous situation the rural areas are currently facing,” he claimed.
Demand-supply gap widens to 7,100MW
According to the Monday generation chart, the hydle contribution was 5,850MW, the independent power producers (IPPs) chimed in with 5,230MW and the government-owned thermal units another 1,825MW. This generation of just under 13,000MW had to cater to average demand of 20,000MW and peak demand of (6.30pm to 11.30pm) of 21,000MW.
“The situation is disastrous,” says an official of the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC). “Almost the entire Guddu complex is offline as there is no gas for it. The AES Pakgen is closed for the last three months. The Nandipur is offline for the last two weeks. The liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies have dwindled, forcing the power managers to run some of the machines on expensive diesel, and run them at half of their normal capacity. Almost all plants around Lahore are either producing nothing or less than half of what they should have. The water supplies are only saving grace for the sector right now; Tarbela Dam is generating around 3,600MW, Ghazi Brotha around 1,000MW, Mangla Dam, another 750MW. Had these hydle generations not saved the sector, things could have simply collapsed by now,” he explained.
This meant around 10 to 18 hours loadshedding, depending on the socio-political importance of the areas, he explained and added: “If one takes around 650MW supplies to Karachi, the national figures drops further, making situation horrible for the rest of the country. Ad hocism is the core reason for the pathetic situation the country faced. Almost the entire sector is being run either by ad hoc heads of different power companies or bureaucrats sitting at the top. This is an explosive situation, to say the least. One can only hope and pray for some improvement in weather in next 24 hours, otherwise crisis would persist, if not worsen.”
Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2015
On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play
Big cities getting electricity at rural areas’ cost - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
Against a demand of over 21,000MW (excluding K-Electric) on Monday evening, the total generation was recorded at 12,900MW – a gap of 7,100MW.
According to the calculations made by Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) officials, this gap, on average, should translate into just under 12-hour loadshedding at national level.
“But since the government has ordered (the company) to restrict (outages) in the major cities like Lahore to seven hours only, the load is naturally transferred to rural areas,” explains a Pepco official. “These cities are power guzzlers; only Lahore region accounts for around 25per cent of national supplies. If one has to save Lahore, which the power planners have been instructed to do, loadshedding in the rest of the country would go up by 15pc. Make similar calculations for other politically and socially ‘sensitive’ cities and it is not hard to understand disastrous situation the rural areas are currently facing,” he claimed.
Demand-supply gap widens to 7,100MW
According to the Monday generation chart, the hydle contribution was 5,850MW, the independent power producers (IPPs) chimed in with 5,230MW and the government-owned thermal units another 1,825MW. This generation of just under 13,000MW had to cater to average demand of 20,000MW and peak demand of (6.30pm to 11.30pm) of 21,000MW.
“The situation is disastrous,” says an official of the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC). “Almost the entire Guddu complex is offline as there is no gas for it. The AES Pakgen is closed for the last three months. The Nandipur is offline for the last two weeks. The liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies have dwindled, forcing the power managers to run some of the machines on expensive diesel, and run them at half of their normal capacity. Almost all plants around Lahore are either producing nothing or less than half of what they should have. The water supplies are only saving grace for the sector right now; Tarbela Dam is generating around 3,600MW, Ghazi Brotha around 1,000MW, Mangla Dam, another 750MW. Had these hydle generations not saved the sector, things could have simply collapsed by now,” he explained.
This meant around 10 to 18 hours loadshedding, depending on the socio-political importance of the areas, he explained and added: “If one takes around 650MW supplies to Karachi, the national figures drops further, making situation horrible for the rest of the country. Ad hocism is the core reason for the pathetic situation the country faced. Almost the entire sector is being run either by ad hoc heads of different power companies or bureaucrats sitting at the top. This is an explosive situation, to say the least. One can only hope and pray for some improvement in weather in next 24 hours, otherwise crisis would persist, if not worsen.”
Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2015
On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play
Big cities getting electricity at rural areas’ cost - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
