Increased load shedding of 7 to 10 hours was witnessed across the country on Sunday, as the demand-supply gap between the electricity kept fluctuating between 5,000 and 7,000 megawatts.
The Ministry of Water and Power claimed that the demand crossed 20,223MW at 8pm, compared to peak generation of 15,400 to 15,700MW, depicting a shortfall of 4,786MW.
The shortfall was a result of soaring temperatures that rose to 47 and 48 degrees Celsius in parts of Sindh and south Punjab, while major load centres such as Lahore, Karachi and the areas around Rawalpindi and Islamabad witnessed highs of 43, 37 and 36 degrees Celsius, respectively.
A ministry spokesperson is reported to have said that Sunday was the first day in nearly two weeks when scheduled load management was carried out, as distribution companies had been maintaining maximum supply to consumers over the past two weeks due to comparatively lower temperatures.
The electricity shortfall witnessed on Sunday was comparatively higher than in the early days of May 2013, when it ranged between 4,000 and 6,000MW. However, the demand at the time had also been lower by 2,000-3,000MW.
The spokesperson maintained that load shedding averaged between 6 to 8 hours, except for low-recovery and high-loss areas where prolonged load shedding was witnessed. He added that there was no forced load shedding witnessed in any of the areas, adding further that the distribution companies had been conveying that there would be increased power cuts when the supply gap widens.
An official explained that after accounting for 7 pc transmission and transformation losses and 19pc distribution loss, the total energy reaching the consumers would be around 11,600MW officially.
This translates into a shortfall of above 8,500MW, or about 12 hours of load-shedding on average, based on the rule that 700MW gap leads to one hour of load-shedding.
It was a rare day for power sector engineers, since it started with a gap of almost 6,000MW, as generation stood at 13,800MW at 9am against a demand of 19,600MW.
The shortfall was mainly due to the closure of 5 old power plants at Guddu due to the non-availability of natural gas, which led to a generation of 680MW against the capacity of 747MW.
Two units of Hubco and one of Nandipur were on outage, while one unit each at the newly-inducted Bhikki and Haveli Bahadur Shah plants could not function efficiently due to incomplete testing issues.
An official revealed that there was an average of 1,000MW of unaccounted draw of generation by some distribution companies against their allocated shares, due to non-metering and communication gaps.
Reports revealed various urban centres across the country experienced 6 to 8 hours of load-shedding while rural areas had to put up with up to 18 hours of power cut.
Sources say the hydropower projects contributed a maximum of 4,280MW, while public-sector generation companies produced 2,877MW and independent power producers (IPPs) almost 8,300mw.
