'Pakistan to have surplus power from November'

Load-shedding will come to an end with the start of new plants

ISLAMABAD: Consumers of electricity, who have faced prolonged outages for several years, will be enjoying uninterrupted power supply as Pakistan will have surplus electricity from next month, say officials while talking to The Express Tribune.

“This comes in the wake of efforts made by the government to address the challenges faced by power producers and distributors.

“Over the past four years, the government has undertaken numerous steps to improve power production as well as identify and remove constraints in the supply chain.



“Earlier, electricity consumers were enduring frequent blackouts that disrupted business activity and routine life, shaving around 2% off the country’s annual economic growth.”

Officials revealed that Pakistan would have surplus electricity from November 2017 with the start of power generation from new plants including liquefied natural gas-based plants and fall in demand due to winter.

With this, load-shedding will come to an end except for areas where transmission and distribution losses stand at sharply higher levels.

“The country has witnessed a marked improvement in power generation as new power plants have come on stream,” an official commented.

Average electricity production increased from 11,804 megawatts in June 2013 to 18,658MW in June 2017, which brought average shortfall down from 7,938MW to 2,888MW. Now, this shortfall is expected to be bridged next month.

According to officials, electricity outages also came down from 10-12 hours a day in June 2013 to 3-4 hours in June 2017. Interestingly, industrial units have been receiving uninterrupted power supply since January 2016 except for the month of Ramazan, when some supplies were diverted to domestic consumers.



They pointed out that power distribution companies had been facing constraints in 102 grid stations in 2013, which were reduced to only 10 in mid-2017.

In a similar fashion, 298 transformers were facing constraints in 2013, which fell to just 29 in June 2017. In the case of transmission lines, the power sector had been dealing with 137 constraints in 2013, which were later addressed and brought down to 27 in 2017.

State-owned National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) had also faced constraints in 20 grid stations of 220 kilovolts in 2013, which were almost removed and stood at one in 2017.

There were also constraints in seven 500kv grid stations in 2013, which were cut to just one in 2017. In the same way, there were 10 constraints in 220kv transmission lines in 2013, which were addressed in 2017. There were also 10 constraints in 500kv transmission lines, which were reduced to one in 2017.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 4^th, 2017.

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