LAHORE – Contrary to the Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO)’s claims regarding a reduction in load shedding, the city witnessed even greater power closures on Thursday. A couple of days ago, PEPCO officials assured the electricity consumers of a ‘better summer’ but the situation is entirely different. The power shortfall in the recent days has increased sharply owing to an increase in electricity demand while electricity production remained stagnant.PEPCO Director General Muhammad Khalid in a press conference on Tuesday claimed that load-shedding in Lahore was being carried out only for four hours in urban areas and six hour in rural.
He also said that PEPCO is being supplied gas from Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL)’s power plants of Guddu, Kotri and Jamshoru but on Thursday, the situation got worst and people witnessed unscheduled load shedding. There were also frequent power breakdowns on Thursday that irked citizens. The power shortfall has increased to 1,825MW, as demand remained 13,126MW while the production stood at 11,301MW. Power production has not increased in the recent days while the demand has shown a sharp rise owing to the weather change. There has been an increase of 270MW of electricity production while demand increased by 761MW.
Sources said PEPCO officials were aware of the high demand but they did not prepare for it. The PEPCO seniors instead of finding ways to increase power production, emphasised holding weekly press conferences and kept giving ‘good news’ of less load shedding in summer, the sources said, adding that SNGPL has already restored gas supplies to certain power plants but still load shedding was continuing.
The mercury has shown a sharp rise in the last four days and it has resulted in an increased use of air conditioners and fans in the offices and business centres. “It was evident that electricity’s demand will increase with the change in weather but PEPCO did not make any contingency plan and now people are suffering,” the sources said. PEPCO DG Muhammad Khalid was not available for comment.
