LAHORE, Nov 29: Loadshedding would continue for three more days as another plant of 400 megawatt (MW) went off line, Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) officials told Dawn on Saturday.

They claimed that with coming online of Kot Addu Power Company (Kapco) on Friday evening, which caused loadshedding throughout the country for three days, Rouche Power (of 400MW) went off line next morning, keeping the overall power deficit almost at the same level.

Pepco had ended the loadshedding by Friday evening (6pm), but had to resort to it by Saturday morning when Rouche Power collapsed. The management of the power plant has informed Pepco officials that it would take another three days to come back.

If Rouche management’s claim is to be believed, loadshedding would end by Monday afternoon, provided that nothing extraordinary happened to the over-stretched generation and distribution system.

About the reasons of Rouche Power going off line, officials said they could not ask for reasons of plant going out of operation because Independent Power Producers (IPPs) were contractually bound to provide “a certain number of units to Pepco.” If they fail, the Pepco could slap liquidated damages on that particular IPP, but it could not officially interfere in the running of the plant. It has to believe what it is told about plant operations and it was told three-day period was needed to bring plant back online.

The overall deficit of the company remains around 750MW, as water releases from Tarbela Dam have also been squeezed by another 5,000 cusecs. — Staff Reporter