Due to various reasons, but mainly on account of the inactivity of 2000-2007, Pakistan is facing an energy crunch which first became evident in 2005 and then magnified manifold by 2007.
Experts, as a solution, would tell us that generation capacity needs to be increased in consonance with the existing gap and the increasing demands - in itself the greatest of the challenges and which may take quite some time to achieve. Similarly, as a quick fix, it is advised that conservation, improvement in energy efficiency of use and thirdly load management (not necessarily power cuts) be taken up to further mitigate the energy crises.
However, it is pertinent to state that energy efficiency cannot be achieved on the immediate or the short-term basis, while the load management normally translates into the requirement to firstly shed extra loads and secondly, to shift excessive loads from the various peak hours to off-peak hours through incentives - both, rewarding and those that are of a punitive nature.
In other words, and while not denying the importance of attaining energy efficiency (extremely long term in Pakistan's context) and conducting load management, it is seen that both these measures either will not mitigate the crises on the immediate basis or would result in denial of the service to some of the customers sometimes for some hours of the day. Incidentally, in times of dire need, PEPCO has been conducting up to 12 hours of loadshedding in the past.
Conservation, on the other hand, is an activity, which does not need any gestation period or lead time to be implemented and then additionally results in reduced billing for the users. According to religious edicts, conservation is also in line with the Quranic injunctions.
Explaining this activity, we see that conservation is of two types. The first is that, which could be taken up by the customers at their own through less usage, economic usage, savings and the inculcation of badly needed discipline in usage. This is normally taken up in hand by the users more as a social obligation than in order to save in financial terms. This activity does results in reduced demands and surely lesser monthly bills for the people. The dividends can be in shape of upto 25% of less billing.
Furthermore, it is very easy and should not affect the productivity - rather, it in a way improves the same leading to the completion of similar work levels with less use of energy and lesser burden of billing. This type of conservation, however, needs awareness, understanding of the various areas of waste, the comprehension that frugal use would not affect the quality of life or the ambience that is normal for any person and then the required conviction and passion on the part of the end-user, otherwise not much savings would be visible. It was in this vein that PEPCO took up the first of its kind public awareness campaigns in 2008 and 2009. Both these campaigns netted great results and were the role-model for the most extensive such campaign of summers 2010.
Actually, the public participated in the campaign with full vigour, proving the point that Pakistanis can be depended upon in the times of need not withstanding the sustainability of any effort, which is another issue. Another feather in the cap was the media's support in these endeavours.
The other type of conservation is simple non-use of certain loads through the regulation of usage or reduction thereof and this thus has to be institutional rather than anything to be practiced by individuals. This requirement laid down the basis for support from the provincial governments to implement the Shops and Commercial Establishments Ordinances, restricting shops and plazas to shut business by 8.00 pm, instead of the earlier free for all.
The second of the steps was the requirements for the agricultural tubewell owners not to draw water between 7.00 pm till 12.00 midnight. The third and the fourth were the lighting-up of only alternate street light points and the disconnection of billboards from the national grid. Additionally, there was a requirement for the government offices to reduce their electricity usage by 25% and for not using air conditioning before 11.00 am.
The stricture barring ACs for authorised users only was a link in the same chain. It was also decided that the marriage and banquet halls would curtail their functions to just three hours in the evening/night - while the exact timings would be fixed by the provincial government. This step was garnished by the requirement to shun ornamental and decorative lighting, neon signs and such wasteful wastage. Additionally, two other measures were adopted viz. daylight saving time and the five-day week for governmental offices.
All the above ten measures, according to confirmed statistics, resulted in clipping of the evening peak demands by over 1000 MW, (some times reaching up to 1350 MW) , while a sustained reduction was evident to the level of 500 MW during the rest of the day. The daylight saving measure led to a saving of 250 MW for quite some hours of the day and also allowed the late sitters to reach their homes well in time and before darkness struck. The whole deteriorated social fabric improved specifically due to the early closure of shops and markets and even the crime rate dropped. Actually, these steps alone helped the nation overcome the severe power deficits on account of the drought like conditions and record heats of early 2010.
Unfortunately and surely when full ownership of the conservation plan was not evident, slowly the above measures have been left to die. The first to be axed was the daylight saving measure in March 2010 - evidently practiced in more than 70 countries and considered as a very cogent step to save on energy usage.
The vocal amongst us thought advancement of the clock as cumbersome and an impediment in offering prayers. This has been so because conservation has not been really understood and nor had been adopted as a permanent feature - rather, it was considered just to mitigate the shortages and that too on the short-term basis.
The second of the sacrifices has been the relegation of the 5 days week - thoughtlessly billed as a measure leading to production losses. This relegation is even more strange seen that developed countries are following the routine as a well throughout and considered measure not affecting productivity in any negative sense. Meaning thereby, that the waste would continue and the people would again start paying the extra bills for their waste.
More so, when the Asian Development Bank, while propagating its US $8.5 billion energy efficiency programme for the next 10 years gives a figure of 25% of the total energy usage that is simply wasted and which otherwise could be conserved. They also suggest that energy efficiency could net additional 25% savings. The surveys carried out by PEPCO in 2008 and 2009 substantiated the above viewpoint and the level of gains that could accrue out of the ten conservation measures enunciated earlier in the paper.

Coming to the present situation, we see that all the above measures have become redundant because the current gap between demand and supply has reduced. The customers have started using electricity without much concern for shortages and savings, the shops and markets are back to their old ways (never opening before mid-day and then remaining open up to at least midnight), streetlights shine in full glory, billboards (except in Karachi) are fortunately still disconnected, tubewell usage may once again get restricted during peak hours, in all possibility there is no savings in the governmental use and unauthorised persons are still using ACs and electric heaters etc.
Operation of marriage halls is only restricted in some parts of the Punjab. In short, for most of us there in no crises at the moment. As to what would happen, when the power gap becomes evident once again, is not known at the moment, but one can understand the difficulty that will be faced by the utilities in order to re-introduce the same conservation measures that have been forgotten at the moment.
It is also difficult to comprehend the deterioration in implementation of some of the important measures and the snap ending of the 5 days week on the insistence of a particular province by the GoP, when the original decision was taken up by the energy summit, attended by all stakeholders, which necessarily included all the four provinces. This unilateral decision can set a bad precedence and may even unravel the whole set of gains achieved through the decisions of the energy summit - incidentally, a first in Pakistan and a success story.
Dilating on the current effort to ensure sustainability of the power sector, which includes possible full recovery of cost of service for the utilities and improvement in operations and efficiency to the level fixed by the regulator, we see that there is a need to arrange for conservation to permeate deep into the national usage and also to ensure that there is no wasteful use-which in other words, is rightly known as conservation.
Load management, a very important feature of any mitigation programme, has to be the last of the measures to be adopted. And in case, conservation is resorted to only during serious supply constructions, then a most important pillar of a sustainable power sector will not be attained. As an off-shoot, the people will continue to pay for extravagance which otherwise could have been saved. Additionally, when the crunch comes both the utilities and the public will face immense problems and huge power cuts.
(The writer is member of Central Council of IEEEP) cheema_tahir@yahoo.com