11 July 2004	Sunday	22 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

ISLAMABAD, July 10: Pakistan is currently facing an average power shortage of around 700mw owing to low hydel power generation and non-availability of power supply from two major independent power producers (IPPs) , resulting in loadshedding, Dawn has learnt.

The daily power demand has increased to about 12,000mw owing to a sudden rise in temperature and humidity while maximum load availability is 11,300mw, a senior official of the National Power Control Centre (NPCC) told Dawn on Thursday.

This has happened despite the fact that the country's total installed power-generation capacity has increased to about 19,500mw compared with about 17,800mw last year. It is for the first time since 1997 that authorities have resorted to loadshedding.

It is wrongly believed that Pakistan has surplus power, but the fact is that when water or gas availability is not up to the mark or the IPPs are not working in full, the installed capacity becomes of no use.

The official said the power generation from two major hydel stations - Mangla and Tarbela - has come down drastically due to cut in water releases for irrigation purposes because the major crop, cotton, is not water intensive.

Water releases from Mangla has been reduced to 12,000 cusec per day against last year's 60,000 cusec. Water level at Mangla was 50-feet below its maximum capacity and 90-feet below maximum level.

Power generation from Mangla at present is around 270mw against 1,170mw the same time last year while the maximum generation from Tarbela at present is 2,400mw compared with last year's 3,500mw.

As such, the two reservoirs were together producing a maximum of 2,670mw per day against 4,670mw of the corresponding period last year.

The National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) is unable to get about 950mw supplies from two IPPs as well including 350 from AES-Lalpir and about 600mw from Hubco.

"We want full capacity utilization of the IPPs, but Hubco and AES have disappointed us at the time of a pressing need," said the NPCC official.

The 350mw AES-Lalpir at Muzaffargarh and a 300mw unit of Hubco are currently on forced outage while another 300mw Hubco unit is on a routine maintenance. As such, Hubco is supplying half of its 1,200mw power to the NTDC.

The official said the power supplies were also affected in the recent days due to the attacks on gas pipeline and the resultant disruption of gas supplies to the power plants but that has now been restored and the power system was getting full gas supplies.

Meanwhile, the residents of Rawalpindi and Islamabad on Thursday experienced the worst-ever loadshedding in the last eight years due to disruption of power supply from three grid stations of Pirwadahi, H-11 and I-10.

A spokesman for the IESCO said that as per the load management plan of the NPCC, power supply to all parts of the twin cities was alternatively shut down owing to increased use of airconditioners.

The IESCO appealed to the consumers to reduce the use of airconditioners for a few days to help manage the power shortage.