The fall in temperature by 5 to 8 degrees Celsius in the vast plains of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan has reduced electricity demand from 18,000 MW to 16,000 MW in the country during the past couple of days.
Briefing newsmen about power position on Wednesday, Pakistan Electricity Power Co Pepco spokesman said that power generation units of the Co produced 14,550 MW against the demand of 16,125 MW electricity. The shortfall of 1575 MW in the demand and supply was met by load shedding of moderate duration.
Meanwhile Indus River System Authority (Irsa) has further increased water flows down stream the Tarbela dam by another 10,000 cusecs to produce maximum electricity from the hydel power houses of the Tarbela dam that have the capacity to contribute 3,400 MW electricity to the national grid during the peak monsoon season.
Pepco's hydel power houses at Tarbela, Mangla, Ghazi Barotha, Chashma, Warsak etc produced 5540 MW, thermal 1615 MW, IPPs 7215 MW and RPPs 180 MW electricity on Wednesday. It supplied 640 MW electricity to the power deficit KESC.
Experts say since meteorological department has forecast fairly wide spread thunderstorm/rain with isolated heavy falls over Hazara, Kohistan, Malakand, Mardan, Bannu, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Lahore and scattered rains over Zhob, D.G. Khan, Bahawalpur, Multan and Sukkur divisions and Kashmir during the next two - three days, the loadshedding and outages are likely to be less severe.