LAHORE: A combination of record high demand due to scorching heat, stagnant generation and mismanagement turned Friday into nightmare as urban areas suffered up to 16 hours of loadshedding.

The sectoral managers were not sure, or at least not ready to comment on the situation in rural areas.

Know more: 14 hours of loadshedding

By 2pm, national demand had touched 22,800MW against the routine generation of 15,000MW. The supply figure did not include transmission and grid losses, which cost between 300 to 400MW. If those losses are factored in, the total deficit exceeded 8,000MW by Friday afternoon.

People fret about power sector’s abject failure

The peak hours added another 1,000MW demand, which rose it to the historic high of close to 24,000MW and the national shortfall to almost 9,000MW.

The figure according to the projections of sectoral planners, which they had estimated a few years ago, was too scary for them to concede: “No one thought that it would actually happen at this time of the year and render the entire planning useless,” says a former official of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company, who had been part of those projections.

By evening, the situation had spun out of control of everyone. It was simple firefighting, rather than any planning, he claimed.

With thermal and independent power producers already at maximum possible generation, the sector planners saved all water releases from Mangla Dam, which provided around 400MW relief during the Iftar time. Tarbela Dam, where full releases are made 24-hour a day, is hampered by low head. Still, the peak hydel contribution to the system was around 6,000MW (some 600MW less than the full capacity), providing some relief to the system during high demand hours but average generation was around 5,000MW, making life miserable for the common man.

“The generation side is now almost inelastic,” says a former managing director of the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco). For the last two years, there has not been much addition on generation side. Conversely, even the installed capacity remains under-utilised because of different factors.

“On the other hand, even average demand has gone up. But essentially it is weather that determines the level of misery of people. If mercury goes up, so does the demand,” he said.

He said this inelasticity comes from two sources; severe resource constraints and ad hoc system that rule the sector. “Even this resource constraint mainly comes from ad hoc policies. The sector is currently divided into different companies to look after generation, transmission and distribution. All 17 companies are run by temporary heads.

“The Genco Holding Company, which looks after all public-sector plants (with installed capacity of over 4,800MW), including coal conversion and their rehabilitation, is being temporarily looked after by a joint secretary (bureaucrat) Aftab Ahmed Nadeem. The Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco), an umbrella body that looks over the entire sector, has not had a permanent head since 2011.

“The Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) that has to plan and bring private investment saw its head being arrested by NAB two months ago but the gentleman still holds the charge. All the four generation companies are being run by ad hoc heads and so are by all nine distribution companies that supply electricity to the entire country.”

The federal secretary of water and power is due to retire in November and is more of a ‘lame duck’ now. The Alternative Energy Development Board is being “looked after” by Assjad Imtiaz and so is the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC), which is being run and headed by an engineer “purely on a temporary” basis.

With everyone on ad hoc employment and a powerful secretary trying to scare everyone into work, a “psyche of fear” has gripped the sector where saving job is more important than planning for the next day, week or month and it reflects in the situation worsening by the day, he concluded.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2014