ISLAMABAD, Aug 12: Wapda has expressed its inability to drastically cut the ongoing loadshedding across the country due to what it termed “faults on transmission/distribution networks and routine maintenance shutdowns on power stations”.

Sources said on Saturday that Wapda officials have apprised the higher authorities that the country-wide distribution network was in need of rehabilitation in order to restrict the technical losses within allowable limits.

They said that loadshedding could gradually be phased out with increase in system capacity due to generation units established by Independent Power producers (IPPs) and the Water and Power Development Authority.

“But despite expansion in plant capacity, occasional system outages are attributable to factors like faults in transmission and distribution and faults in generating sub-stations,” Wapda informed the Planning and Development Division.

To meet the ongoing serious power shortages, Wapda has proposed a number of small and medium hydropower projects. In this behalf, it said, the state of Azad Jummu and Kashmir has abundant hydropower resources. “For this purpose, it is necessary that hydropower generation projects are planned and built at streams and river flowing in the area.”

The sources said that in the absence of bigger hydropower projects, Wapda has sought adequate financial support to undertake small and medium hydropower stations in AJK.

The economic feasibility of the hydropower stations, Wapda said, had been carried out on the basis of benefits to the overall economy as a consequence of least cost optimum development of hydroelectric potential in the AJK.

Initially, Wapda has identified Sharian Hydro Power Station of 3.2 MW which would cost Rs259.107 million and whose details had been studied jointly by the experts of Wapda and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.