LAHORE, Aug 23: A major part of the city on Thursday afternoon remained without power supply as Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) had to shut the system down following the 500kv Sheikhupura Grid Station developed some fault.
The power crisis on Thursday was in addition to an overall shortage of around 1,500MW in spite of widespread rains in Balochistan and Sindh and scattered showers in Punjab, which brought down the demand by at least 500MW.
“Had it not been for the rain, the shortfall could have gone up to 2,000MW,” says an official of Wapda’s Power Wing.
At present, it is only humid, not hot. But, even then, the shortfall is increasing by the day.
Blaming low releases from Mangla Lake, he said they were costing the authority some 500MW.
Putting the whole crisis in context, a former member (power) said that Thursday’s crisis should not be taken in isolation; it represented the real malaise. He said the conductors were getting overheated because they were grossly overloaded. The problem was located and repaired on Thursday but it was no guarantee that the same would not happen on Friday, he said.
The authority was unable to take the power crisis by horns because of political compulsions of an election year, he added.
“The conservation campaign has lost momentum and so the drive for construction of big dams in the country,” he lamented and added: “Both are lost in political haze of an election year. The authority could easily save up to 700MW through conservation, but no one seemed to be serious about it any more. Ruling elite is not serious about it, and the authority cannot press ahead beyond a point. It happened on Thursday, and it can happen any other day. Keep your fingers crossed.”
Mr Fazal Ahmad, member (power) Wapda, said “Isolator conductors” at the grid station were repeatedly getting overheated and the authority went for emergency shutdown of two hours - from 5pm to 7pm - to repair the conductors.
According to Mr Ahmad, the shutdown must have reduced power supply to the city by at least 300MW, and the LesCo had to switch off corresponding feeders.
According to independent sources, some 321 feeders (of total over 1,500) of the company, mainly in the city, went off as downpour hit the city on Thursday afternoon and the total duration of shutdown was around three-and-a-half-hour.
One should couple the shutdown with overall power shortage of around 500MW that the LesCo has to share and the total loss comes around 800MW. The total consumption of the LesCo is currently around 2,750MW.
Commenting on the crisis, LesCo chief Akram Arain said the company switched off all industrial feeders in order to facilitate supply to the domestic consumers. By 8pm, all feeders were restored and the supply became normal, he claimed.
But, independent verification by Dawn from different parts of the city belied the LesCo chief claim. Some localities on the Bund Road, especially the low-lying ones, Shahdara, Amin Park, Jia Musa, Misri Shah, Feroze Wala and Muridkey were still without power till the filing of this report at 10pm.
The LesCo officials, however, said that power failure in these areas was linked to problems like accumulated water and broken poles in these particular localities, and not to Sheikhupura Grid Station fault.
On the one hand, rain provided relief on Thursday by bringing down electricity demand, but, on the other, it added to the woes of the company and people alike by pulling down poles and hampering restoration efforts in the areas.
Interestingly, Lesco public relations officer feigned complete ignorance about the crisis, saying: “I have been in the office all the time and nothing like that happened. Everything was normal.”
