The latest crisis that has Pakistani’s from all walks of life up in arms is the lack of electrical power throughout the country.
While rolling blackouts or load-shedding, as it’s locally known, has become a staple of daily life in the country, the problem has become acute in the last couple of years. The power cuts during this time amounted to 20-22 hours a day in most small cities and even cities like Karachi were seeing 18+ hours of load-shedding.
The total installed capacity of Wapda and KESC totals around 19,500 megawatts. Almost two third of this power comes from thermal power plants (fossil fuels), one third is generated by water and about 2% comes from nuclear power plants.
The demand for electricity in Pakistan during the winter months actually goes down.
The electricity consumption in Pakistan hovers around 11,000 MW, down from the peak levels of 17,500 MW seen in summer. This demand is well within the installed capacity, yet they are only generating a meagre one third (6500MW) of their maximum capacity during this period leaving a huge gap between supply and demand.
The thermal power plants are working far below their potential due to the lack of money caused by the circular debt between various government agencies reaching a staggering 400 billion rupees.
Everyone understands that Pakistan is facing serious problems requiring long term solutions and the present government can’t be expected to make significant headway in the short term, yet there are things where it can make a difference.
UMAR AFZAL
Lahore
