The Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) is providing false power statistics and daily demand and supply numbers to the people, sources told Pakistan Today. The sources said PEPCO failed to increase power production in the country and tried to cover up its incompetence through fake figures.
On Friday, there were heavy rains across most of the country and the power demand dropped, but the figures issued by PEPCO on Saturday were astonishing. PEPCO stated that demand on the day was 18,051 megawatts while generation remained at 13,244MW, a shortfall of 4,807MW. “It is a huge demand on a rainy day and far away from reality,” said a source.
The weather had remained pleasant throughout Friday, and there were long hours of outages in the country because of poor electricity transmission, thus power usage was reduced even further. “There is no chance that power demand can touch 18,051MW on a rainy day, as the usage of air conditioners drops sharply,” said a PEPCO official who asked not to be named.
He said power demand decreased by 20 percent if air conditioners were turned off, so the demand should not have gone beyond 15,500MW. However, PEPCO had to show increased power production to cover up its incompetence, therefore it was necessary that there should be increased power demand, he claimed.
DECREASED PRODUCTION: “The shortfall remained 4,500-5,000MW round the clock and it is necessary that demand should be showed at 18,000MW so that PEPCO can claim that power generation remained at 13,000MW,” he said, adding that there was no transparency in checking the power and demand system in PEPCO and the media had no option but to rely on figures provided by the company.
He said power production had dropped to 11,000MW these days but PEPCO was still claiming it was at 13,000MW. People associated with the power sector said the power demand only touched 18,500MW in peak hours when temperatures in the country soared beyond 42 degrees Celsius.