ISLAMABAD: With mercury shooting up beyond 45 degree centigrade in the federal capital – Islamabad, followed by more or less similar level in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta – life became awfully miserable due to prolonged electricity load-shedding on Sunday. 

Unannounced hours-long load shedding continued to persist – making men, women and children upset – as they did not have a moment of respite because of suffocated weather at home and scorching heat under the open skies in almost all the areas – with Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi – atop.

Amid no signs of climatic change or rainfall – routine life of the citizens is being worst affected because of hours-long power interruption and break-downs – especially when the air-conditioners and desert-coolers also stopped functioning due to heat spell – which is mounting day-by-day. 

While most of the unscheduled power shutdowns are phrased as ‘tripping in transformers’ – in almost all the cities, the plight of the people in smaller towns and villages is reported to be extremely – horrible.
 
In Karachi, some of the areas including Gadap Town are reported to be without electricity since two days. Citizens have demanded from the government to take notice of inefficiency of the KESC and ensure the continued supply of electricity in the city.

At the same time, students appearing at exams in Karachi are facing enormous difficulties as they are preparing and solving papers in load-shedding, heat and humidity. With agonizing increase in the electricity charges and tariff – mounting electricity line losses seemingly remain intact resulting into electricity shortfall being faced by the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) reached 1,000MW – like elsewhere.

The citizens cried out in protest against the incessant loadshedding – which spreads over 10 to 16 hours, coupled with the soaring 45 degrees temperature, stifled life. The people complained of problems in offering Friday prayers, with neither fans nor loud speakers operational during the congregational prayers. Samanabad, Iqbal Town, Model Town, Gulberg, Faisal Town, Garden Town, Township and the Walled City faced severe power outages.

Sources in LESCO say that the shortfall for the company had increased to 1,000MW. They said the demand in the city during the sizzling heat was as high as 3,400MW against a 2,400MW supply. The sources sarcastically said the people should pray for rain and pleasant weather, as that was now the last hope for LESCO to be able to reduce loadshedding.

Like electricity bosses in Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar Quetta and other places – in Lahore, LESCO officials said the huge gap between demand and supply was due to the heat wave. They blamed the increased use of air conditioners (ACs) and other cooling appliances for the forced shutdowns. ‘The hot weather has resulted in increased use of ACs, refrigerators, and other appliances. This has caused the demand for electricity to shoot up,’ says a spokesman of the power supply set-up.

Pepco Reax
      
Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) Managing Director Tahir Basharat Cheema has said that Pakistan will get rid of the power shortage problem in next year and expensive methodologies had been used in haste to overcome  power issues.

While talking to private news channel he said the 1000 MW Neelam-Jhelum project, was being constructed on run of river, which would after five years cost only 37-paisa per unit of electricity, while work on Bhasha Dam would start in  February-March 2010 for which bidding process would soon start.

Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) is putting all possible efforts in research and development to introduce modern technology in strengthening and upgrading its power distribution systems.

As many as 10,293 MW electricity from all sources would be added into the  system by the end of December 2012, he said. Giving details of the plan in his presentation, Cheema said that 3692 MW would be added by the end of 2009; 1806 MW in 2010; 3604 MW in 2011; and 1191 MW electricity would be added into system by the end of December 2012.

Cheema also said that the Discos would receive 400 MW electricity from captive power plants with a view to utilizing surplus/redundant capacity of captive power  plants. “For the first time after 17 years, power plant is being installed in the public sector, which would help reduce power deficit,” he said.

Cheema said Pakistan had 435 MW surplus electricity in 2001 that turned into shortage of 86 MW in 2002. However, again the country had surplus electricity of 236 MW and 197 MW in 2003 and 2004 respectively, he added.

He said the increase in power generation includes 1381 MW of rental plants, 1949 MW of IPPs, 478 MW of hydropower and 50 MW of wind power from biomass to be added in PEPCO system.

The government was facilitating private sector in setting up additional power plants on a fast track basis to cater for the power deficit. In this regard, 136 MW Bhiki power plant would be commissioned soon, he added.
 
Raise in power Tariff

Meanwhile, despite a 19% hike in power tariffs in financial year 2009 the government intended to increase yet another 17 percent in the tariff during financial year 2010 to settle remaining inter-corporate debt payments under IMF pressures, a media report said on Sunday.

Increasing tariff for clearance of piled up inter-corporate debt amounts to punish the consumers for the folly committed by the previous government of allowing the accumulation of the dues of the fuel and gas suppliers as well as power generating units.

The government has allocated low power tariff subsidy allocation in the budget which signifies a strong intent to phase out power tariff subsidies by increasing the power tariff. However, the move of increasing tariff is likely to face not only a strong political and legal opposition but a general rejection by the masses already overburdened with the high cost of living and costly electricity which absolutely mismatch the per capital income or the income level of the common man. On the other hand the high cost of inputs especially the cost of electricity is a major cause of negative growth shown by the manufacturing sector. The high cost of power, gas and POL products is a serious threat to the socio-economic development in the country.

However, the much sought after improvement in power sector liquidity the bridging of the systematic gap between generation cost and electricity tariffs is of vital importance.The experts believe that in order to improve liquidity of the utilities the first step is to address the chronic issue of power massive power theft which is generally described as line losses both in KESC and WAPDA instead of finding a solution tariff hikes.

Since the current generation cost and tariff mismatch it is high time streamline the cheaper fuel resources like coal, hydro power and above all nuclear power generation which is the cheapest source of power generation. According to informed sources, in the present scenario every incremental month of delay if phasing out subsidy would add Rs6.2billion to the tariff subsidy bill hence delaying to find cheaper source of power generation would continue new to add to the burden of subsidies.