LAHORE, Oct 31: The Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) on Wednesday decided to re-launch conservation campaign, which according to its calculation could save up to 700MW if the district governments and public cooperate with it.

The new campaign will be a stick and carrot drive, with heavy content of persuasion. As per the new guidelines issued to the distribution companies, all billboards in their respective areas will be switched off by 9pm.

According to the directions, if a billboard owner refuses to cooperate in the drive, he will risk power cut off permanently. Even power supply to a particular locality can be cut if the owners fail to switch off extravagant lights.

The company has also decided alternate power supply to steel furnaces. They could even be denied power supply during the peak hours, if need be. Agriculture tube wells, enjoying a subsidy of Rs0.75 per unit from 10pm to 6am, will also be forced to shut their operation during this time.

The proponents of the conservation drive maintain the company will be able to save up to 250MW on account of billboards. They says the billboards consume over 500MW in the entire country and if the authority is able to save even half of energy, it will be saving 250MW on this head alone.

Similarly, they say, the streetlights guzzle another 582MW in the country and by switching off alternate streetlights, the company can save another 275MW. The total tally from these two heads goes up to 525MW.

Besides, if markets pull their shutters down by 8pm as per official requirement, the company will be able to save another 300MW, they say.

They are of the view if all these steps are taken the company may not have to resort to loadshedding this year at least.