ISLAMABAD: The government on Saturday claimed that ‘forced’ load-shedding has been done away with after gradual increase in supply of RLNG to Punjab-based power plants and improvement in inflows of Tarbela reservoir as generation was recorded at 23,000MW.
An official told Business Recorder that ‘forced’ load management has now ended except in areas where Discos have local constraints. Revenue-based load shedding policy is being enforced on high loss feeders especially Mepco, Pesco, Sepco, Hesco and Qesco.
RLNG-fired plants are not being operated at optimum capacity due to 400MMCFD less supply of RLNG and almost 3000MW less generation from Tarbela. Inflows are expected to increase in the next three days.
The sources said RLNG-fired plants were operated on diesel to meet electricity demand. Also furnace oil-based inefficient power plants were operated to bridge the gap in demand and supply during suspension of RLNG supply, and annual maintenance of the Kunar Pasaki field.
During suspension of RLNG due to dry docking of Engro’s terminal, Petroleum Division supplied 525MMCFD of RLNG for power generation, which has now increased to 600MMCFD.
Though supply of RLNG to power plants was less than their requirements, but the government managed it and operated Haveli Bahadar Shah (HBS) on diesel. Bhikki power plant is on outage due to fault in its blade and it will take two weeks for it to be back in operation.
The sources said total hydel generation was recorded at 5124MW of which the share of Tarbela was 1315MW, Ghazi Brotha’s 1443MW, Mangla’s 794MW, Chashma hydropower plant’s 87MW, Jinnah’s 87MW, etc. Of total generation of 23000MW, Gencos contributed 1272MW, IPPs 16645MW and Wapda hydel 5124MW.
“The total electricity demand including high loss feeders is not more than 24,500 MW which implies shortfall is not more than 1500 MW,” the official maintained.
However, unofficial information available with Business Recorder suggests that shortfall is over 5000 MW, of which 3500 MW is being managed in the name of revenue-based load shedding.
According to Minister for Energy, Hammad Azhar, RLNG supply situation will be normalized by Monday (tomorrow).
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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