LAHORE: Eight-hour loadshedding has returned to cities, and more for rural areas, as hydel generation drops by over 50 per cent in the last 48 hours, worsening the impact of gas closure to the sector.

By Wednesday, the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) reduced water releases from dams to a paltry 22,000 cusecs against 60,000 cusecs three days ago. Consequently, the hydel generation went down to a meager 1,200MW against 2,500MW by Thursday morning.

If the previous water releases plan of the Irsa is any yardstick, the releases will come down 8,000 cusecs and generation less than 500MW, worsening the situation by Friday and correspondingly increase loadshedding in next 24 hours -- taking it over to 12 hours a day in the urban areas and more for rural.

According to the National Transmission and Dispatch Company NTDCL), Thursday saw a deficit of close to 2,500MW as generation dropped down to 8,500MW and demand around 11,000MW.

The officials, however, privately conceded that the actual deficit was over 4,000MW for better part of the day, except for the peak period when entire water releases were concentrated to meet the additional demand.

“The generation crisis has concentrated in the last week of December and better part of January as canals and gas closure has driven 4,500MW hole in the system,” says an NTDCL official.

For the last three weeks, the sector had been coping with around 1,000MW deficit that the gas crisis created. On top of it has come water stoppage, taking the figure down by 3,500MW in the last three days. It has translated into more than eight hours of loadshedding so far.

By all calculations, it would go beyond 12 hours in the next two days and the situation would sustain itself for the next four weeks till water returns to canals. That means entire January would see persistent power crisis in the country, he warned.

“The sector is left with no option but to sustain longer hours of loadshedding,” says another official of the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco).

If the generation is shifted to expensive oil option, it would only ensure swelling of circular debt, which are already close to Rs200 billion.

These four weeks can add another Rs30 to Rs40 billion into the tally, which no-one can afford. Thus, sectoral planners have no other option but to go for loadshedding and keep the circular debt as low as possible, he explained.