LAHORE, July 8: The Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) will be able to overcome electricity deficit by December 2009 keeping in view the recently updated figures as of April 2008, which suggest an increase of 8.53 per cent in demand against 10.25 per cent generation.

According to a company’s press release, the dependable capacity of Pepco generation would be enough to cater for the loads beyond 2009. Besides, the demand side management would allow spare capacity.

The supply side measures for the period up to December 2009 include 169MW of hydel power, 300MW of Genco system rehabilitation, 615MW of IPPs and 1,202MW of rental power. While the demand side steps total 1,500MW.

Importantly, the constraints for Pepco and the IPP generation due to financial problems last year are now easing up and would become even better by the end of 2008. This, hopefully, would add 1,000 to 1,500MW to the total availability within the current year.

The current installed capacity of Pepco system stands at 17,834MW, whereas the dependable capacity is listed as 15,926 MW. With the addition of 401MW within the year, the dependable capacity would add up to 16,327MW.

This capacity will be 2,085MW in 2009, making the dependable capacity to increase to 18,412MW. It would become 22,537MW in 2010, then 24,017MW in 2011 and 24,812MW in 2012.

The dependable capacities mentioned above are against the projected demands of 16,484MW, 17,863MW, 19,352MW, 20,870MW and 22,460MW between 2008 and 2012.