LAHORE, April 19: Apart from severe fuel and gas shortage hampering power generation, Pakistan Electric Power Company’s failure to maintain its own thermal units causes a considerable portion – over 50 per cent – of the total shortfall and people are forced to face up to 12 hours of loadshedding on a daily basis.

According to the company’s record, currently, its four plants are on what the company calls “forced” outage – euphemism for failure to maintain its plants in routine. According to Pepco record, out of total 700MW capacity of Jamshoro thermal unit, capability to produce 180MW – around 25 per cent of total capacity – is on forced closure.

Similarly, out of 1,130MW of GTPS Muzaffarghar, machines for 300MW – or 25 per cent – are not working.

Out of 1,155MW Guddu power plant, production units for 400MW – more than 34 per cent of the total capacity – are lying idle.

As if all this was good enough for keeping the country without electricity for more than 12 hours, 210MW combined cycle plant in Faisalabad is also not working because the company is not getting gas for running the plant and its does not have money to buy diesel for the plant.

“That is precisely why Pepco’s thermal generation has dropped to an abysmal 1,896MW on Tuesday against total capacity of around 3,580MW,” says an official of the company.

The problem with the company was that its recoveries had dropped exceptionally, and it did not have money to buy alternative fuel and maintain its plants. Both the factors were at the heart of the current crisis in which almost 30 per cent of the country was without electricity at any given point of time on a daily basis, he lamented.

According to the record of the company, two of the hydel plants – Jagran (30MW) and Malakand (81MW) – that were damaged in the floods last year – have not completely come back yet.

To make the matter worse, short gas supplies have hit three other plants – Sapphire Electric Power (225MW), Saif Power Project (209MW) and Orient Power Project (212MW).

Against their total generation capacity of 646MW, they are producing only 495MW because they are not getting required quantity of gas. The fuel crisis has completely shut down Japan Power (135MW) and Saba Power (134MW).

“The gas and fuel crises are making life difficult but one must not forget that out of officially declared deficit of 2,720MW, around 1,500MW comes from Pepco’s own thermal plants,” admits an official of the company.

Had the company been able to maintain its own plants, it could have recovered over 1,500MW from its own plants – bringing the shortfall down to a negligible 1,200MW, he says.

“But, the problem with the company is that it does not have bucks to maintain its plants and buy fuel because its recoveries went down badly and some provincial governments and Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) are not paying their dues, he adds.