Industrial sector exempted from loadshedding: Dastgir

Energy crisis to gradually subside with significant improvement from July onwards, says minister

ISLAMABAD:

Federal Minister for Power Engineer Khurram Dastgir on Wednesday said the industrial sector has been exempted from the prevailing energy crunch as the sector now experienced “zero loadshedding”.

Addressing a press conference, the minister claimed the government has brought down the loadshedding to only three and half hours in around 84 per cent feeders across the country, adding the crisis would gradually subside with a significant improvement from July onwards.

He said the total power generation stood at 22,010 megawatts against the demand of 26,227 megawatts while the shortfall hovered around 4000 megawatts. He announced that the power system would be able to generate optimum power within the next two to three weeks.

The power minister’s statement comes a day after the federal cabinet decided to slash the fuel quota for itself as well as the government employees by 40 per cent while restoring Saturday holiday for the public sector as part of the government’s austerity measures aimed at balancing its books amid a fierce squeeze on energy and shrinking room for spending.

Pakistan has experienced hours-long power cuts over the last month, with urban centres seeing four- to six-hour outages a day and rural areas over eight hours, as temperatures across the country soar – to 50 degrees Centigrade in some areas.

He said that in order to provide maximum relief to the masses and plug the power deficit, inventories such as furnace oil have to be pumped into the national grid system and the sources for electricity have to be diversified.

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Moreover, Khurram continued, the ministry was also arranging to import coal power plants.

He voiced hope that the addition of 600 megawatts of coal-based power generation would further reduce load-shedding. “K-2 nuclear power plant which was under refuelling process would also start generating 1100 megawatts which would further help decrease power outage.”

He said, unfortunately, currently hydroelectric generation stood at around 3,196 megawatts due to reduced water inflow in the rivers. The government was also making all-out efforts to operationalize RLNG based Trimmu power project shorty to further bridge power demand, he said.

The minister said that more electricity was generated in April-May but this year the country witnessed unprecedented power demand during the said period due to a sharp increase in temperature.

He said the government has planned various measures including early closure of markets, two weekly off and one-day work from home to conserve maximum electricity.

In response to a question, the minister clarified the government has decided that no more power plants would be set up in the country based on imported fuel in future. The massive investment would be carried out in solar energy in order to increase its share up to 10,000 megawatts.