IPR issues fact sheet: 'no chance of reduction in loadshedding over next two years'

Institute of Policy Reforms (IPR) on State of Power Sector issued a fact sheet here on Thursday which stated that there is no chance of reduction in loadshedding in the country in next two years. It estimates gap in peak demand to exceed 4500MW. Loadshedding remained high in 2013-14. Daily average loadshedding was as high as 10 hours in Multan and Quetta while it was three hours in Gujranwala and Lahore, and two hours in Karachi.
The IPR fact sheet on the State of the Power Sector is based on Nepra's recently released State of Industry Report 2014. "Despite the marginal increase in generation, loadshedding is expected to continue well into the year 2019 exacting a high cost of 3.7 percent of GDP on the economy," according to report.
The fact sheet recognises a modest increase of 550MW in installed generation capacity in 2013-14. Most of the increase is in thermal generation. Furnace oil as a fuel source had a share of 61 percent in thermal generation. This has increased the country's dependence on imported fuel for power generation.
"Given the incidence of loadshedding in 2013-14 at different locations in the country, the economic cost of outages for the country as a whole is 948 billion rupees in 2013-14. This is equivalent to 3.7 percent of the GDP. Punjab consumers bear 64 percent of the costs as compared to 11 percent in KP, eight percent in Sindh, nine percent in Balochistan, and eight percent in Islamabad," report mentioned. According to a study by the Institute of Public Policy (IPP), the cost ranges from Rs 23 per Kwh to domestic consumers to Rs 29 per Kwh to agricultural consumers, Rs 53 per Kwh to industrial consumers and Rs 68 per Kwh to commercial consumers.
The fact sheet also reveals that supply of electricity to distribution companies of Punjab province showed high growth, especially in the case of Gepco, Mepco and Fesco. Some utilities saw a decline in supply. These include Pesco, Hesco and Qesco. The country has seen no improvement in line losses from transmission and distribution of power.