Karachiites have started facing unscheduled loadshedding as Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) has at last reduced 300MW of electric supply to Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) on Saturday, without making alternative arrangements for KESC.
According to the official sources at KESC, Wapda has cut 50 percent of its supply to KESC without facilitating additional supply of gas from Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC). The sudden reduction of supply has left the privately run utility to redraw the schedule of power outages as it was running short of over 550MW, they said.
According to sources, Wapda has arranged the supply of subsidised oil to KESC and the company was getting 1600 tons of furnace oil from PSO for the last few days, as promised. KESC, which previously had started generating over 900MWs from its Bin Qasim power plant has reduced the power generation to 680MW on Saturday which has increased power outages in the city, sources said.
Earlier it was reported that six units of Bin Qasim were generating 95MW, 70MW, 80MW, 90MW, 160MW, 190MW respectively during the peak hours of Saturday. However, one of the official spokesmen of KESC denied the news and said that Bin Qasim was generating over 900MW as the units of the plant were running on both furnace oil and gas.
He said due to the low pressure of gas the power supply from gas based Korangi plants was reduced by 50 percent. Responding to a question he said that the unscheduled outage in the city was temporary and after the resumption of required gas, Karachiites would not face unannounced loadshedding.
Conversely, sources said that the company has also approached Wapda for the resumption of power supply to the company until the required gas is provided. It is pertinent to mention here that Wapda, under the agreement made at the three day energy summit held in Islamabad from April 19 to 21 curtailed its supply of 250MW out of 650MW to KESC till June 1, 2010.
Though the short-term arrangement for one month was to be effective from May 1, Wapda was supplying over 600MW till May 7 for what the sources said lack of fuel arrangements to KESC. According to the agreement, to compensate the reduction of power supply, Wapda facilitated the supply of additional 1600 Tons Per Day (TPD) furnace oil, while paying the extra cost of fuel through its own account, to avoid further burdening over the citizens who are already facing five to six hours of loadshedding.
Under the fresh agreement, KESC will ensure that no change takes place in existing loadshedding schedule in Karachi for the residential and commercial customers. The supply of SSGC gas to KESC would also be enhanced from the current 200MMCFD (average) to at least 230MMCFD at all times, he said, adding, in case of reduction in agreed oil or gas supply, Wapda intake would be increased proportionally.
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