Demand-supply gap hovers around 3,500MW: official

RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: The domestic energy demand-supply gap is hovering around 3,000-3500 megawatts on the back of the end of rains, an official of the Water and Power Ministry said on Saturday.

He said that during the current month, the government recovered about Rs22 billion from power sector’s defaulters.

He said that because of recent rains, the electricity demand-supply gap was reduced to 2,100MW, adding that as rains had stopped in most parts of the country, again pushing up the electricity demand.

He informed that the Water and Power Ministry was planning to distribute around 30 million energy savers among 15 million households, adding that the consignment would reach Pakistan by the end of September or the start of October. “Two savers each would be distributed among every household free of cost.”

According to the official, in Islamabad, electricity remained suspended for four hours, while in other major cities such as Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Peshawar, Quetta and Rawalpindi, load-shedding extended to six hours a day.

He said that here was no load-shedding in Islamabad from September 19-21 because of rains and good weather.

Commenting on the possibility of an improvement in power generation capacity, he said that Pakistan’s current total installed power generation capacity was more than 18,000MW. “Currently we are producing 12,000MW…if we start using full (generation) capacity, there will be no load-shedding, but this will increase generation cost.”

At present hydroelectric power generation stands at 5,000MW against total installed capacity of 6,444MW, Independent Power Producers (IPPs), including Gencos 6,400MW against total capacity of 9,600MW and nuclear 600MW.