KARACHI, July 26: People in various localities complained about power failures on Wednesday and the Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation claimed that power supply situation has improved.

Principal Information Officer of the power utility Syed Sultan Hasan while briefing newsmen at KESC head office said the power consumption marked a drop of 150 MW as weather turned better. He said the electricity demand of 2,250 MW had dropped to 2,100 MW. Although the Hubco-Baldia link was not restored, the power from Wapda was being supplied through Jamshoro-KDA link.

He said the power generating units of the KESC had been working to their full capacity and the system constraints, like overheating and overloading of power transformers, were also under control.

“As the situation has improved a lot, the KESC will abandon loadshedding from Wednesday night and there will be no loadshedding from Thursday”, Mr Hasan said.

Explaining KESC’s inability to announce schedule of loadshedding, he said the KESC produces 55 per cent power and it obtains 45 per cent from Wapda and IPPs. In case of power supply suspension from other generating units, the KESC has no other option but to resort to load-shedding.

He cited a recent example of Tuesday when the power supply from Wapda came to halt and an IPP also tripped creating a sudden shortfall of 700 MWs and forcing the KESC to carry out power loadshedding. He said that the KESC was dependent to an extent on other power sources and could not issue load shedding schedule. About Hubco-Baldia link, unserviceable since Monday, he hoped it would be back on Friday.

Speaking of development work, he said the KESC was spending Rs 2.5 billion to install three new grid stations at Old Town, West Wharf and Mauripur, which would be equipped with five transformers of 40 MVA each. Besides, the installation of new power supply feeders would stabilize power supply in old town, Mauripur, Keamari, West Wharf, Dockyard and other adjoining localities. Civil work at these stations was in progress, and would be completed by December this year and the power supply through these grids would begin by January next.

However, people in various localities said that the power supply was suspended erratically.