The country is facing outages of 6-18 hours due to shortfall of about 7500 MW in electricity generation and demand as neither the required RLNG is available nor are there sufficient water releases from Tarbela.
Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar has convened a meeting of Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) on Thursday (today) to review the steps taken by the Ministry of Energy to deal with current energy ‘crisis’ which is attributed to suspension of RLNG supply to three power plants of 4000MW and 3500MW as well as lower generation from hydel sources.
The government operating all its plants, including the most inefficientness to cope with the crisis like situation at a time when scorching heat across the country has made the lives of people difficult.
The sources said total generation was recorded at 21500MW at 1:30 pm, with generation of 1524MW from Gencos, 15210MW IPPs and 4834MW hydel. Power plants are being supplied around 400MMCFD gas against their demand of over 1000MMCFD. Generation from furnace oil and diesel is within the range of 2500-3000MW.
However, Power Division has not shown total demand which insiders claim was not less than 30,000MW. The shortfall in generation was over 7500MW.
The sources said forced outages were in the range of six hours but vary from time to time and between feeders. This is in addition to revenue-based load-shedding which ranges from 2 hours to 18 hours.
Those areas which were earlier exempted from load-shedding are now facing hours-long forced outages.
Hydel generation, sources said, is still unsatisfactory due to a substantial reduction in inflows from hilly areas and is not likely to improve in July, which implies that generation from expensive fuels will continue.
Meanwhile, in a tweet, Minister for Energy, Hammad Azhar said on Wednesday that Kunnar Passaki Deep (KPD) gas field has resumed supply to the Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) network after completion of annual maintenance.
He further stated that dry docking of one RLNG terminal has been initiated, adding that the change will be completed by Monday next. Most SNGPL gas diversions will take place during this time.
When contacted, some of the consumers in Punjab-based Discos confirmed that duration of load shedding has increased during the last couple of days.
The CCoE is also expected to be updated on actions proposed by the inquiry committee constituted to probe the petrol crisis 2020. The then SAPM on Petroleum, Nadeem Babar resigned from the post whereas Secretary Petroleum went on three-month leave. Some other officials were also removed. OGRA, the regulator, has also taken a number of actions in light of report which will be shared with the CCoE.
