Minister for Power Division Sardar Awais Leghari has dispatched a team of NTDC (National Transmission and Despatch Company) to China aimed at studying Beijing model to deal with smog in the country. Leghari held a special meeting on smog related issues at 8am on Tuesday convened to assess the situation arising due to outages caused by the weather conditions in some parts of the country. Officials from all Distribution Companies, NTDC, GENCOs, NPCC and Power Division attended the meeting.
During the last four days, 82 points at 500/220Kv transmission lines of NTDC in smog-hit areas resulted in tripping. The DISCOs level 132kv transmission lines faced with same problems and their number is much higher. According to an official, the government is also considering installation of insulators and Power Division has directed NTDC to look into it and make resources available. Power Division will submit a plan to the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC).
According to an official statement, Federal Minister directed that immediate measures like installation of anti-smog and anti-fog discs be taken at critical points to ensure uninterrupted power supply to the consumers as there is no shortage of generation in the country. Leghari also directed that all CEOs of the DISCOS and NTDC sit together and evolve a technically sound solution for the problem. He directed that the planning and proposals should be finalized within three to four weeks time.
Minister appreciated the efforts of ground teams which are working in the extreme weather and fighting the impact of toxic gaseous deposits at the high transmission and distribution lines. He also appreciated the efforts to control the cascading effects of tripping which could have resulted in system breakdown and blackouts as was experienced some years back.
The Federal Minister was informed that areas in MEPCO, LESCO and HESCO regions are facing unique smog for the first time. The smog contains dust, industrial emissions, carbon mono, ozone and nitrogen oxide which when mixed with moisture during the late hours of night debilitates the transmission system. The Federal Minister said the country has already entered into an era of bridging the demand and supply gap after more than one and half decade as sufficient generation is available within the system to meet the demand. He noted that even this morning the system demand is 12552MW, with14000MW available generation which clearly shows that there is no shortage of electricity in the country.