Outages return after surge in power demand

LAHORE: The rising power demand outpaced electricity generation on Monday, prompting managers to shut major supply lines for offsetting pressure on the national grid.

Owing to jump in electricity demand on the back of a wave of hot and dry weather across the country, forced outages returned to haunt people as government lacks handy and readily available power generation options due to non-commissioning of RLNG-based thermal power plants. The delays in commissioning of RLNG-based power projects to full capacity as well as unexpected upsurge in urban load have led to widespread power cuts across the country.

The spokesman of Power Division, Ministry of Energy, admitted that power was being suspended under a centralised system to avoid overloading of the power transmission system. There is some overloading and it is temporary, he claimed and hastened to add that this temporary tripping of system has been gradually restored and now power supply resumed to normal levels. Efforts of our staff led to successfully avoiding collapse of national grid, the spokesman said.

Apart from power cuts due to load management plan, system up gradation and technical faults, abrupt suspension in power supply even at exempted feeders of up to 10 per cent losses started on Monday afternoon, leaving people high and dry for unspecified times amid scorching heat.

The record hot weather witnessed first time in this summer in fact peaked to 48C in Rahim Yar Khan in the Punjab province with Lahore sizzled at 44.4C. The mercury however reached to 50C in Jacobabad, Shaheed Benazirabad districts in Sindh province followed by 49C recorded in Larkana, Moenjodaro, and Sukkur.

With jump in hot and dry weather, power demand also increased to over 21,000mw for the first time this summer while generation faltered at around 17,850mw. An official of Lahore Electricity Supply Company (LESCO) said that system demand in the distribution company surged to 3,800mw while average supply remained around 3,500mw. He acknowledged that dip in power generation against rising demand have resulted in shutting down of grids through centralised system to avoid collapse of power transmission system.