\u2022 Duration nearly three times more than what was announced earlier
\u2022 Minister cites LNG import disruption, Middle East crisis as key factors
\u2022 Shortfall estimated at 3,400MW
\u2022 Demand spikes from 9,000MW to 20,000MW in days
\u2022 Nuclear plant maintenance postponed to boost supply<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ISLAMABAD: Power Minister Awais Leghari on Thursday\u00a0confirmed\u00a0six to seven hours of load management \u2014 almost three times higher than the government\u2019s public commitment \u2014 citing a sudden surge in demand, non-availability of imported gas and lower water discharges for irrigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking at a news conference, the minister said power shortfalls had been caused by disruptions to LNG imports due to the\u00a0Middle East crisis\u00a0and by lower provincial irrigation water requirements, both of which he said were beyond the government\u2019s control. However, he insisted that the government was making every possible effort to minimise both outages and potential tariff increases arising from the use of expensive alternative fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this regard, he said the government had even postponed maintenance of nuclear power plants for a few weeks, with no scheduled shutdowns until July. He added that all available resources had been mobilised, including diplomatic channels, to secure fuel supplies through alternative LNG sourcing and diversion of local gas, while ensuring adequate availability for fertiliser production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The minister said the country also witnessed unusual fluctuations in demand this month due to weather conditions, with the lowest demand of 9,000MW on April 9 and a peak of 20,000MW six days later, on April 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the situation would slightly improve in a day as discharges from dams had been increased by 15,000 cusecs to 25,000 cusecs, which would help enhance hydropower generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other side of the equation, hydropower sou\u00adrces provided 3,200MW and 3,000MW from liquefied natural gas imports, leading to minuscule generation from furnace oil because it had a significant fuel-cost impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year, however, all LNG-based plants with a capacity of 6,000MW remain mostly idle due to LNG import disruptions caused by the Middle East war. While LNG-based plants provide no more than 500MW and that too on local gas, hydropower supply also stood at 1,600MW, because of recent rains that replaced water discharges from dams for irrigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This meant, he claimed, that there would have been no power shortfall if LNG-based and hydropower plants had been operating, as the current shortfall was around 3,400MW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEvery 500-600MW sho\u00adrtfall translates into one-hour load management and therefore the government was forced to have six to seven hours of average load management without any discrimination between urban and rural areas,\u201d he said, adding that the load management schedule was equitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He claimed that there was no load management during the daytime, when demand generally remained low and there was sufficient generation capacity available. He appealed to consumers to conserve power to sail through an international crisis. He added that despite shortcomings at present, Pakistan\u2019s diverse energy sources like coal, solar, wind, nuclear and others are also a strength, which provides resilience in times of crisis, otherwise, the situation would have been even worse than at present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Leghari said the early market closures enforced by the government had also helped shave about 1,200-1,400MW peak demand; otherwise, the load management would have been higher by another two hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The minister did not agree with a questioner that LNG from Qatar may not be available for the next three years and claimed that some supplies were possible by mid-May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said spot purchases were not possible at the moment because of the war\u2019s impact and unaffordable prices, as imports of petrol and diesel were already facing foreign exchange constraints due to higher import prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He conceded that cheaper and greater generation capacity in the south could not be utilised in the north for some transmission constraints as well as system stability issues arising out of the non-availability of LNG-based generation capacity in the mid-country and that was why there was no load management in Karachi and Hyderabad power supply areas, except some economic load management by K-Electric in high-loss areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With these load management efforts, the minister said the positive fuel cost adjustment next month would be around Rs1.3 per unit, compared to Rs1.8 per unit a couple of months ago; otherwise, fuel costs would have risen significantly with full utilisation of furnace oil- and diesel-based plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He took responsibility for consumers\u2019 suffering but said the challenges were caused by a war in the neighbourhood and lower water requirements for irrigation. \u201cIf the public is facing any inconveniences due to us not providing electricity at night and during peak hours, I am directly answerable and apologise,\u201d he said, but insisted that the circumstances were beyond the government\u2019s control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The minister explained that power demand beyond 16,500MW required load management in the absence of gas availability. \u201cA shortfall occurs when the demand goes beyond 16,500MW after the consumption of every fuel resource in Pakistan \u2014 imported coal, local coal, nuclear, hydropower and solar power. And then in the evening, the load shedding hours have to be increased as per the requirements,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2022 Duration nearly three times more than what was announced earlier\u2022 Minister cites LNG import disruption, Middle East crisis as key factors\u2022 Shortfall estimated at 3,400MW\u2022 Demand spikes from 9,000MW to 20,000MW in days\u2022 Nuclear plant maintenance postponed to boost supply ISLAMABAD: Power Minister Awais Leghari on Thursday\u00a0confirmed\u00a0six to seven hours of load management \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-load-shedding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7265,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263\/revisions\/7265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanaffairs.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}