As soon as the weather has started turning warmer, the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) has increased its load shedding hours, making life more miserable for the citizens, who had to brave between three and five hours of power outages during winter.
The coming summer might turn out to be the ugliest one for the 18 million residents of the city in terms of the power situation as the power utility claims that it has increased load shedding duration due to a “sudden decline in gas supply”.
Many parts of the city are experiencing power breakdowns lasting for about six to seven hours in various spells.
In a press statement, the KESC claimed that the “recent sudden reduction in natural gas supply by the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) is adversely affecting the power generation equation in the city”.
The power utility said the “unplanned reduction in gas supply from the SSGC has resulted in an unfortunate increase in the load shedding hours for the utility’s residential and commercial consumers. Of late, despite fluctuating fuel supply, the power utility had been making concerted efforts to contain the load shed duration in residential and commercial areas from three hours to a maximum of six hours. However, with the negative impact on power generation because of the gas shortfall, the load shed ceiling has gone up to to 7.5 hours in some areas”.
The power utility pointed out that despite the challenging situation it is facing, the industrial areas are still exempted from power shedding.
The power utility early demanded resumption of adequate gas supply for power generation and said that the recent increase in load shedding hours would be withdrawn as soon as gas supply to its power plants is increased.
The KESC also asked for immediate supply of the committed additional 130mmfcd gas for its 560MW new combined cycle power plant at Bin Qasim.
“This extra power generation could ease the demand supply gap in the city,” the power utility added in its statement.
