By By our correspondent
Karachi
Massive power load-shedding plagued the lives of people in Karachi on Saturday due to the virtual breakdown and faulty working of the Karachi Electric Supply Company’s (KESC) power generation system.
The electricity shortfall crossed the phenomenal 600 megawatts (MW) mark in the last 24 hours, causing continuous spells of power load-shedding in order to bridge the gap.
The power supply situation deteriorated amid widespread electronic media reports that the KESC has once again petitioned the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) to allow the privatised power utility raise its electricity tariff from Re1 to Rs4. No official word was, however, available from the KESC about an anti-public petition of this sort being sent to the Islamabad-based NEPRA.
A source privy to power supply situation in the city confided on Saturday that the KESC had been resorting to two-and-half-hour-long spells of load-shedding in residential areas after every two hours. Apart from residential and commercial areas of Karachi, all industrial estates in the city will also undergo load-shedding simultaneously from midnight to 4 am.
The maximum shortfall of power supply faced by the KESC on Saturday was 650 MW and at 6 pm the electricity shortage was 564 MW.
The fault-prone Bin Qasim Thermal Power Station (BQTPS) of the KESC was giving an accumulative power output of just 600 MW against its desired generation of 1,160 MW. Generation unit no.4 of BQTPS has not been functioning since Thursday night, whereas the rest of five generation units have been giving low electricity output due to excessive reliance on natural gas instead of furnace oil as fuel to run the generation units, said a source. Unit no.4 of the Korangi Thermal Power Station that was giving around 40 MW power output also tripped on Saturday.
Besides, the electricity input of around 80 MW from Karachi Nuclear Power Plant was not available since Friday, whereas the power supply from Defence Cogen desalination plant that stopped on August 15 was revived on Friday for less than 24 hours, as the power input again stopped due to problems with the KESC transmission network connected to the desalination plant.
Another source at the KESC’s 118 centralised complaint centre said that since Saturday morning they had been receiving a virtual deluge of frantic calls by the consumers affected by the highly disturbed electricity supply situation.
Owing to mild weather condition the demand for power supply in the city was around 2,100 MW.