KARACHI: As many electricity consumers continued to face outages throughout Wednesday, a day after one unit of K-Electric’s Bin Qasim power plant tripped for a second time in five days, they complained that the power utility said the problem was of a ‘technical’ nature and restricted to their areas only.

According to a notification released by the power utility around the time of the breakdown late Tuesday evening, “some areas of Karachi experienced a brief interruption in power ... The interruption was a result of load management as one unit of Bin Qasim power plant tripped late in the evening.

“While KE teams are working diligently to restore the tripped unit as soon as possible, select areas experienced interruptions that lasted from 30 minutes to one hour. KE regrets inconvenience caused due to unforeseen circumstances.”

However, as consumers continued to face prolonged outages and approached KE on Wednesday, they were informed by the utility that the problem they were experiencing had nothing to do with the tripping of the power unit at Bin Qasim.

“The ‘unforeseen’ circumstances, many consumers believe, are in fact quite predictable as the four power plants of Bin Qasim Station I are old and de-rated,” explained Choudhary Mazhar Ali, general secretary of KE Shareholders Association on Wednesday.

“Instead of generating up to 220MW each, they are generating around 170MW. They really are badly in need of maintenance. Another two plants there have been shut down for conversion [to] coal, which is yet to happen,” he added.

By evening some consumers were also informed that due to low gas pressure, KE has had to resort to loadshedding in order to manage the power shortfall.

KE’s spokesperson said that they were “working closely with the relevant authorities for restoration of gas pressure during the day. All efforts are being made to ensure required pressures are available throughout the day,” he said.

“The power plants run on gas as well as oil but while the consumers are charged for fuel costs for running them on oil, which is more expensive, KE runs them on gas. Sometimes, when there is a shortage of gas like during the winter months, they just switch them off themselves as they don’t want to run them on costly oil, and the consumers suffer,” said a KE shareholder.

Meanwhile, a spokesman of the Sui Southern Gas Company said that “Gas is being supplied to KE at an average volume of 160MMCFD despite the fact that three natural gas fields — Naimat Basal, Sajawal and Bhit — faced technical issues.

“Supply of gas from Naimat Basal and Bhit fields has been restored. SSGC is [making] all efforts to maintain proper supply of gas to KE and its valued domestic customers for which all compressed natural gas stations in Sindh will also remain closed on Thursday.”

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2017