The ministry of water and power on Sunday confirmed that three of its thermal powerhouses have been temporarily closed, impacting a drop of 1,500MW of electricity, while hydel power generation has also fallen by 4,000MW following a month-long closure of irrigation of canals for the purpose of annual repair and desilting.
Apprising about the current power generation position of the national grid system, a spokesman of the ministry said thermal generation has been partially affected from Kot Addu Power Company (Kapco), Kot Addu and AES PAK GEN near Muzaffargarh due to shortage in the delivery of furnace oil by PSO. Power generation from Jamshoro Power House has also been affected due to contaminated water received from Manchar Lake for cooling, he added. He hoped that the situation is temporary and would soon improve.
He further said that the cumulative impact on power generation from the closure of these plants is estimated to be around 1,500MW, but is likely to be restored soon.
He recalled that load-shedding, during the same period last year, hovered around 4,500MW and claimed that with the restoration of these power plants, gap between supply and demand is likely to be reduced to around 1,500MW, which is far less than the corresponding period last year.
The ministry's spokesman regretted inconvenience caused to the consumers and said that current load-shedding is primarily due to the loss of 4,000MW in hydel generation owing to annual canal closure. He however assured that government is making all out efforts to ensure that load-shedding is resorted to minimum so that the normal routine and economic activities of people are affected the least.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.