Pakistanis will pay more for less power during this year again as the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) has formally communicated to the federal government that power shortage may touch 3000 mw during the coming scorching summer months, according to independent experts.
This shortage will be in addition to tripping--a normal phenomenon in power distribution system during the boiling summer months of May-June-July--and would be partly sourced to the unresolved gigantic issue of circular debt. "Power shortage will be 50-60 percent less than previous year," sources quoted Pepco as saying in its communication to the federal government. However, this assumption has been challenged not only by some of the officials of Water and Power Ministry but also by independent power sector analysts.
Power rates are also being raised by 6 percent from April 1, 2010 as per the agreement between the GoP and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Analysts are of the view that power shortage will range between 4000 and 4500 MW because power sector projects--possible RPPs and IPPs--have been delayed.
Last year, when there was no power for 18 hours in rural areas, the government never admitted that shortage was above 4000 MW per day. Keeping in view last year''s experience, it can safely be assumed that power crisis would remain more or less the same, commented a Water and Power Ministry official.
According to Pepco''s power outlook, with new IPPs and RPPs in operation by this month, maximum generation will be 13,467 MW against demand of 14100 M. In April, total generation will be around 14,417 MW whereas demand will be 16433MW. In May and June, production is expected to be 15970 MW against the demand of 17858 MW. This shortage reflects an ideal situation as Pepco has not mentioned the worst case scenario.
Pepco has intimated that GoP/Pepco are in the process of taking steps to mitigate the energy crisis through generation capacity additions and energy conservation measures.
According to Pepco, eight rental power plants (RPPs), cleared by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), are in different stages of completion and are destined to be completed by July 2010, which looks to be an unlikely completion date. The government expects that it would add 1156 MW to the system. Further, till December 2010, 2067 MW will be added through 9 independent power producers (IPPs). In this way, a total of 3,223 MW is expected to be added to the system by December 2010 facilitating the reduction in the supply-demand gap.
Official sources said that to make optimum utilisation of current capacity of existing public sector thermal power plants, rehabilitation work has commenced at thermal power station (TPS) ar Guddu, which will further add 320 MW by December 2010. Additionally, USAID support is also likely to account for an additional 370 MW to the existing capacity in June. Through energy conservation campaign, launched by Pepco, 1000 MW was saved during last year. This campaign will be carried forward for this year also and it is targeted to save 1,000 MW this year.