LAHORE: Pakistan is facing major power blackouts almost every year since 2013. Even the country had experienced such blackouts twice in 2015 and 2016.

According to leading power sector expert Dr Shahid Rahim, inadequate investment in T&D facilities, a relentless pressure to cut costs and a continuously weakening institutional capacity are raising the chances of such incidents which until the recent past were only considered rare.

He said the cause of every blackout was traced back to lack of proper execution of the “Under Frequency Load Shedding (UFLS) Schemes” which not only demonstrates the shallow thinking of our technical experts but also speaks about the importance they assign to electricity consumers of the country. In any advanced country, multiple layers of defense will be placed and activated and allowed to deal with any such incident before resorting to UFLS options.

In Pakistan, however, the first line of action the authorities resort to during any system contingency is shedding of the loads of helpless electricity consumers, he added.

He said this is not just an odd practice by the NTDC system operators, but is very well grounded in the applicable regulatory documents, for instance the Nepra Grid Code of 2005 which permits the NTDC operators to automatically shed consumer load at a frequency deviation threshold (49.4 Hz) which is fairly close to the nominal frequency (50 Hz).

Dr Rahim further pointed out another glaring deficiency that has come to light in the aftermath of the most recent blackout. It relates the absence of any proper contingency and emergency management plan for the power grid. This is a serious issue and the Nepra must ensure that the NTDC develops a formal “contingency management plan” and gets it approved from the Authority as soon as practicable. The Nepra should also ensure that the adequacy and effectiveness of this plan is field tested by conducting drills every year or every two years.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023