LAHORE – The Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) on Tuesday announced to start two to 10 hours of load shedding due to an increase in shortfall. This was announced by PEPCO Director General (DG) Muhammad Khalid at a press briefing.
He said that urban areas covered by the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) would face two hours and rural areas five hours of closure. The Gujranwala Electric Power Company’s (GEPCO) urban areas would face seven hours and rural areas nine hours of load shedding while Faisalabad Electric Power Company (FESCO) would conduct load shedding of six hours in rural and 10 hours in urban areas and the Multan Electric Power Company (MEPCO) would face closures of five to six hours in urban and seven to eight hours in rural areas.
The Islamabad Electric Power Company (IESCO) would have four hour closures in urban areas and six hours in rural areas while the Hyderabad Electric Power Company (HESCO) would conduct six hours load shedding in urban and eight hours in rural areas. Last week, all of these distribution companies were having less load shedding but now the shortfall has increased owing to which PEPCO announced a new schedule.
The PEPCO DG said that load shedding is not being conducted in power looms and the situation would remain same in days to come. He said that nowadays, industry takes almost 37 percent of the power load. Khalid said that generation remained 10,352MW while the demand touched 12,087MW resulting in a shortfall of 1,735MW. He said that hydel generation added 4,365MW, thermal 1,519MW, IPPs 4,406MWand rental power plants produced 62MW.
He said that 670MW were being supplied to the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC). The DG said that the company is receiving 2,132MW from the Tarbela Dam where the inflow was 2150 cusecs compared to last year’s inflow of 15,400 cusecs while generation from the Mangla Dam was 759MW.
