To deal with power shortfall of nearly 4000 MW in the coming months, the Cabinet, in its meeting on Wednesday, is likely to approve advancement of clocks by one hour for six months ie till October 31, 2009, sources close to Additional Secretary, Water and Power, Zarar Aslam, told Business Recorder here on Monday.
"We believe that load shedding will not end in the country, given the measurers being taken by the present Minister for Water and Power, Pervez Ashraf, who is repeatedly claiming that there will be no load shedding in 2010," sources said.
The summary, made available to this newspaper by top officials, suggests that currently power system in the country has total installed capacity of 20,231 MW which has been de-rated due to aging power plants in public sector to a dependable capacity of 17,897 MW in summer and 13,215 MW in winter.
"Average shortfall of 1000 MW has been experienced during the current month, and this shortfall is expected to rise by end of May, 2009 due to reduction in the outflows from Tarbela and Mangla. We expect that shortfall will peak to 3600 MW in June, 2009 but this situation will ease by end of 2009," sources added.
The Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) is reported to have apprised the federal government that to bridge the present supply-demand gap and to mitigate the present and expected level of load shedding it is undertaking supply side management through induction of additional generating capacity of 2500 MW (1519 MW IPPs + 1000 MW rental power plants) by December 2009 and demand side management through energy management and conservation measures like improvement of efficiency, awareness campaigns for prudent use of electricity and replacement of existing bulbs with energy saver bulbs.
"These demand side management measures are expected to save 500 MW," according to simmary. Sources said that last year the federal Cabinet in its meeting on May 14, 2008, had approved advancement of clocks by one hour, which was implemented in the country from June 1 to October 31, 2008 (five months) to effect daylight saving.
This measure is expected to lead to a saving in consumer loads by 250-300 MW daily for 5 months. This saving thus netted was exactly 250 MW in June 2008, while it waned to the bandwidth of 200-100 MW in October 2008. This enabled Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) to reduce the load shedding in its area of jurisdiction by 1-2 hours daily (on the average), thus greatly helping the customers in their daily lives.
"We have proposed that watches/clocks should be moved forward immediately by one hour (GMT+6) till October 31, 2009 for conservation of 100-250 MW electricity at various time slots of the day," sources in the Ministry added. Private sector, especially sponsors of rental power projects, are also unanimous in saying that power load shedding would continue into 2010 despite tall claims by officials sitting in the Ministry, the PPIB and the Finance Ministry.
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