KARACHI: K-Electric (KE) has claimed that ongoing electricity load shedding in the megacity is due to low gas supply. A KE release here Thursday said as temperatures rise, the peak demand touched 2,600 MW yesterday and is expected to continue escalating in coming days.
K-Electric is currently receiving gas supply at approx. 90mmcfd as opposed to ECC allocated 276mmcfd and below the supply levels of this time last year.
Due to a reduced gas supply, 500 MW gas fired plants are currently not operational creating an additional shortfall in the system.
The shortfall is expected to increase as demand increases. Due to this additional shortfall customers in residential and commercial areas will experience a temporary outage of one hour whereas industrial customers will experience outage spells of four hours on average.
The load management cycles are being taken on a rotational basis. Efforts to communicate timings to individual customers via our customer service and digital platforms are underway and we request your support and patience during this process.
Our key priority at the moment is to make all possible efforts to manage load without burdening customers while also ensuring all available generation is maximized including bringing online ahead of schedule one of our smaller FO fired units at BQPS which was under planned maintenance.
Whilst measures taken at KE end are expected to bring partial relief, the single fuel gas fired power plants of K-Electric will continue to remain un-operational and the 500MW shortfall can only be addressed with increased levels of gas supply by SSGC.
We are in contact with SSGC on the matter over supply situation is expected to resume to normal as soon as gas supply is elevated to last year’s corresponding levels.
We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and request our customer’s cooperation during this time, the release concludes.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.