K-Electric has said that continuous disruption in the power supply is out of its hands as the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) was not providing the agreed quantity of gas.
The statement was issued amid prolonged power outages affecting industrial, commercial and residential consumers equally.
The K-Electric, however, added that the port city, which is solely dependent on the utility provider for electricity, would be in a much better situation in 2021 with the arrival of new LNG plants.
A statement issued by the spokesperson of KE said that the company has five power plants out of which four are running on gas, while the remaining one runs on furnace oil which generates one thousand megawatts of electricity from it.
“It is only the gas-powered plants that are facing issues in supplying power. Load shedding is only taking place where it was needed, the LNG power plant would come next year and this situation would not remain the same next year,” she said.
“While the quantity of the required gas remained available, decreased pressure led to reduced production of electricity. This gas pressure issue created a supply gap of 400 megawatts at a time when demand was high. The generation would be increased as soon as the gas supply is available at the required pressure,” the spokesperson said, adding, “we are constantly in contact with the SSGC management to overcome the issue”.
The spokesperson further added that K-Electric’s furnace-oil-fired power plants remain fully functional.
It may be mentioned here that the K-Electric is the sole power production, transmission and distribution firm responsible to supply power across the city of ports and other parts of Sindh and Balochistan.
Meanwhile, the SSGC said they had informed K-Electric regarding the issue in advance and advised it to adopt alternate solutions like running power plants on coal, furnace oil and/or diesel.
