KARACHI, May 27: The Water and Power Development Authority on Saturday launched the newly established power link of Hubco-Baldia and simultaneously shutdown its one of the two circuits of Jamshoro-KDA link.
The step was taken just ahead of Monday’s scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the high officials of Wapda and the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, where the recurring power breakdowns with particular reference to Karachi would come under discussion, well-placed sources said.
The KESC has been facing a shortfall of up to 300 MW and it may ask the prime minister to direct Wadpa for transmission of power between 800MW to 1,000MW. Besides, the KESC’s new head would give a detailed presentation about the achievements and future plans. He would also brief the premier that the KESC would establish three new grid stations by the next month and 13 more in the next fiscal year. Besides, the existing capacity of 900MW at Bin Qasim Power Station has been increased to 1,000MW. By June 2006, the cost incurred on these as well as other projects would be around US$70 million by the next month.Member Power Wapda Mohammad Anwar Khalid told Dawn on Saturday that the Wapda had been supplying more than the agreed 550MW power to the KESC. “We supplied up to 590MW power to the KESC on Saturday and in the recent past we supplied up to 670MW,” he added.
When asked, he said that the Wapda had surplus power up to 300-400MW. “We reserve it for emergency situation, as the demand would increase in the summer and we need more power,” he added.
He said that the Wapda at present might be able to give an addition supply of up to 300MW to the KESC but it would be difficult for it in the mid of summer when demand would multiply. “If the prime minister takes any decision about giving additional power to Karachi, we will follow the decision,” he said adding that if the demand increases, the load would be adjusted either in Karachi or somewhere else.About Hubco-Baldia link, he said: “We were ready to supply the electricity through Hubco-Baldia link on Friday but the KESC sought more time to get prepared. We started the link today (Saturday) with a supply of up to 310MW power,” he said.
He further said that one of the two circuits of Jamshoro-KDA link had been shutdown for maintenance.
However, KESC spokesman said that the Wapda had served a 15-minute notice before shutting down its one of the two circuits of Jamshoro-KDA link and starting the supply through newly built Hubco-Baldia link. He said that a sudden switch over to the new link caused 80MW shortfall. The KESC had to carry out loadshedding across the city for an hour. Following the application of load management method, the stability in the system came by 3pm, he added.
He said that the Wapda supplied 310MW from Hubco and another 250MW from Jamshoro. The city’s total demand was 1968MW during the day and it might increase to 2,100MW during peak hours from 7pm to 1am. The low demand was because of strike and closure of shopping and business centres. He said that the KESC did not need to resort to loadshedding on Saturday.
The Hubco-Baldia link was completed with a cost of Rs3 billion. One of the two transformers having capacity of transmitting up to 500MW power has been installed. The Member Power had said that the second transformer would take two to three months to be installed.