Power blues

The bad news is that power will remain in short supply during Ramazan. We can expect load-shedding. The source of this news is Additional Secretary Ministry of Water and Power Omer Rasul who stood before a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Water and Power. In this the honourable additional secretary revealed that at present the gap between power supply and demand in Pakistan stood at 5,000MW and it would be a success if the shortfall was maintained in the summer season this year. Average demand for electricity stood at 17,400MW in April compared to generation of just 11,900MW, leaving a gap of more than 5,000MW. In May, 1,200MW are to be added to the national grid but this itself is insufficient to bridge the gap. Much more has to be done given that power outages were a priority for the present government. In fact, empty promises were also made by some leaders that power load shedding would end by 2017. So far this has not happened.

This will get worse before they get better. It is predicted that consumers in urban areas will experience four hours of load-shedding while those in rural regions will face six hours of outages. Electricity demand is expected to surge to 24,000MW in the summer season this year compared to 23,000MW last year. Last year, the country produced 17,000MW of electricity, but in the current season, it would increase to 18,000MW.  This is good news but we need more generation capacity at our doorstep. So far we have received a mixed response from international investors.  We are told that thermal power projects of 4,000MW capacity had been abandoned by China under the economic corridor project and that the Pakistan government was now trying to divert that investment to hydroelectric power projects. To add to this, Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) Chairman Muzammil Hussain had claimed that international donors are not ready to invest in hydroelectric power projects and they were exploiting Pakistan in that regard. Either way a solution for more generation capacity has to be found. Until we don’t produce enough power, the problem will continue to persist. Some long-term vision is required for this to happen.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2017.

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