Power outages going to increase by 50pc

New load management plan to minimise forced outages

LAHORE: With gradual increase in temperature, the intensity of planned outages is going to increase for domestic and commercial consumers by up to 50 percent in coming days coupled with withdrawal of zero outages status of mixed industrial feeders, it is learnt here on Thursday.

The electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) have started process of revising load management plan in order to minimise occurrence of forced outages, said an official. He said that outages for domestic and commercial consumers living in urban areas and district headquarters is being increased to six-hour a day with one-hour each interruption from four-hour daily, showing an increase of 50 percent.

Similarly, he maintained, domestic consumers living in suburban areas would face eight hours a day power cuts from earlier six hours daily, showing an increase of about 33 percent.Moreover, consumers of rural areas will bear most of the brunt as they will brave 8-10 hours outages a day. On the other hand, there will be 12 hours daily power suspension for agriculture tube-wells under the new power load management plan.

Most important, official said, keeping in view rising demand of power in coming days, there will be 4-6 hours a day outages in the mixed industrial feeders. However, he said, management of Discos would try their best to avoid power cuts for industrial sector but if there is a widening gap between demand and supply, power supply to mixed industrial consumers could be suspended in a planned manner.

There has been increase of about 600mw in shortfall of electricity during past 24 hours, an officials said, adding power shortage jumped to 3,900mw on Thursday from 3,600mw recorded previous day. The demand also surpassed 18,000mw while generation has attained the level of 14,000mw.

The output of hydel generation is still less than 50 percent of the total installed capacity mainly due to lesser outflows from hydropower stations.

Meanwhile, it is a matter of fact the planned outages will be a complete departure from earlier practice of abrupt and forced outages of 10-12 hour in cities and 12-18 hour in rural areas. The problem of loadshedding resurfaced about a month back as power distribution companies, including Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) started unannounced outages due to imbalance between power generation and demand.

Hence, after a fairly long period of time, abrupt suspension in electricity supply become a common thing from late March. The power managers had failed to notice rising power demand and could not coordinate in advance for increasing supply in view of above-average mercury levels witnessed from third week of March.

Another worrying factor that is haunting hapless consumers has been increasing intensity of forced shutdowns. During past two days (April 26-27), power supply to 200 feeders of Lesco was suspended for about eight hours on the pretext of repair and maintenance daily. These shutdowns are being carried out on various excuses like repair and maintenance, annual preventive maintenance, area planning, shifting of lines, tree trimming etc.