LAHORE, Oct 23: With hydel generation dropping below 4,000MW, the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) now faces 1,500MW power shortage and has started two-hour daily loadshedding throughout the country to meet the shortfall.
According to the Wapda officials, the power demand still hovers around 13,000MW but generation has dropped to around 11,500MW. The shortage is mainly caused by the fast-depleting dams and rivers’ flow at its lowest ebb.
They say all distribution
companies have been asked to start two-hour loadshedding — four times a day in 30-minute spans.
Giving the break-down of current generation, they said the hydel generation had been restricted to 3,800MW - some 3,200MW from Tarbela, including Ghazi Brotha, and paltry 600MW from the Mangla Dam. On the hydel head alone, there was a drop of 2,700MW if the peak power generation of 6,500MW was something to go by, they added.
Meanwhile, power demand has come down from its summer peak of over 17,000MW, thus leaving a gap of 1,500MW. The gap is likely to grow in the short term but it will settle back to 1,500MW when demand drops further with weather getting cooler in the coming months.
“The Punjab has already started canal closure and was drawing nothing from Tarbela command,” an official said.
‘‘It is only releasing 8,000 cusecs from Mangla command. Sindh is getting some water from Tarbela Dam, which is more for political purposes - for claiming that it was not foregoing its water rights, otherwise there is no substantial sowing going on in there,” he added.
Once Sindh also dropped its water the authority would reduce thermal generation - both from its own resources (around 2,900MW) and the independent power producers (IPPs), he said.
About the future shortages, he said the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) had already announced 22 per cent water shortage for the rest of Rabi season. “Tarbela Dam stands at 1,500 feet right now, which is some 20 feet lower than the corresponding day last year. Similarly, Mangla Lake is at 1,115 feet against 1,175 feet last year. The situation indicates the amount of water that would be available for power generation,” he said.
He said live storage in both dams was around 7.2 million acre feet 9maf last year in these days and rivers’ flow had dropped abysmally.
Both these factors - dam situation and rivers flow - showed the situation to come, he said and added: “Pakistan has constant thermal generation of around 7,500MW, and only hydel generation fluctuates with water availability. Now, water supply has dipped and the country is in crisis.”
“The situation would not change for the next few years as the first thermal unit would come online in January, 2009,” says a former official of Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco).
The unit, which was supposed to come online, would only generate 200MW, and the power deficit by that time would be up to 4,000MW, if the present load growth was something to go by, he said.
In the year 2009, over 1,000MW thermal units would come online, wiping off 25 per cent deficit but still leaving a shortfall of 3,000 units. “What I am trying to prove is that power deficit would now be part of our national life, unless a major dam comes online.”
