Outages officially increase up to 10 hours

LAHORE: Amid extremely muggy and hot days in the middle of summer season, Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) on Friday officially increased outages duration in urban areas from four to 10 hours, according to revised load management plan.

From previous flat two to four hours daily power cuts in urban localities and six to eight hours in rural areas, the present jump in intensity of outages by 50 percent has been seen as a major blow to heat-stricken consumers.

The load management plan, which takes effect from July 21, 2017, indicates increase in demand by around 20 percent but intensity of outages has on the contrary been increased significantly. 

It comes at a time when power generation has touched the highest level with full capacity utilisation of hydel generation and robust supplies of natural gas for thermal generation.  According to ministry of water and power, demand of electricity nowadays hovers around 22,000mw against the power generation of 18,500mw.

With shortfall of 3,500mw or about 20 percent of the demand, ministry claims, there is no unscheduled loadshedding being carried out anywhere in the country.  When contacted, spokesman for ministry of water & power expressed astonishment over increase in outages in Lesco areas. He added that power outages could be result of shutdowns that could be necessary for development work. 

As per new load management programme of Lesco, urban domestic consumers having 0-20 percent of losses would face four-hour daily outages while consumers having 21 to 30 percent losses would suffer six hours and people living in high losses feeder (31 to 40 percent) would bear power shutdowns of 10 hours daily. 

Contrarily, domestic consumers living in district headquarters having 0-20 percent of losses would face six-hour daily outages while consumers having 21 to 30 percent losses would suffer eight hours and people living in high losses feeder (31 to 40 per cent) would bear power shutdowns of 10 hours daily. 

Power supply to commercial consumers will be cut by four-hour daily, as per revised load management plan. Industry, however, will enjoy complete exemption from the loadshedding with zero outages, except power looms that has to face four-hour a day outages.

The present overall load of Lesco has been calculated at 4,656mw while load of outages has been estimated at 1,244mw. There has been increase of about 20 percent in the overall load during last about couple of months.

However, according to a Lesco official, Lesco peak load touched 5,000mw level of various occasions due to extreme heat. Commenting on increasing intensity of outages, a Lesco senior official insisted that at maximum, four-hour outages is being carried out in Lesco area.