An increase in loadshedding is on the cards if the required funds for furnace oil and gas are not provided in next few days, said the Pepco sources. Currently the power outages stand at 12-14 hours in urban and 16-18 hours in rural areas. The system is generating around 14,000MW of electricity at peak. But 40 percent of energy produced is through most expensive fuel sources such as diesel and furnace oil.
It may be noted that the government was aiming at increasing the generation of electricity by shifting the bulk of generation responsibility from inefficient Gencos to more efficient IPPs. Rs 13 billion per month are spent on providing 6000 metric tons oil to Gencos who generate only 650MW per month. The idle capacity of IPPs can be utilised by injecting Rs 10 billion which would produce 1150MW electricity. This would result in saving Rs 36 billion annually along with additional generation of 500MW electricity per day.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Water & Power is also thinking seriously of diverting gas available to Captive Power Plants (CPPs) to the IPPs, a move that has irked the textile industry at large. The textile industry is major beneficiary of the CPPs, having installed the plants back in 2006 after spending billions of rupees on government's advice.
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