LAHORE, Feb 26: The power planners were still struggling on Tuesday — 48 hours after a countrywide breakdown — to fully restore supplies, as a fuel and generation crunch hindered their efforts.
“The conditions (high demand and lower generation) that led to the breakdown on Sunday continue, demanding heightened vigilance by the planners at each tier of generation, transmission and distribution,” an official of the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) said.
The prime minister had ordered the finance ministry to arrange Rs40 billion for Pakistan State Oil, of which Rs13bn was paid on Monday night, to improve fuel supplies, but PSO officials said that even if the whole amount was released, it would not immediately translate into increased oil supplies.
“The company is seeking money to retire letters of credit for oil it has already imported rather than increasing imports,” an official said. It still immediately needs Rs12bn to avoid default on those LCs. If it defaults on payments, it would take the company around 45 days to get supplies resumed.
Hence the entire effort is riveted on avoiding default, not increasing supplies for the power sector. The increase would only happen if the company continuously keeps getting payments in future.
The PSO has already doubled the supplies (from 8000 tons last week to 16,000 tons this week) to power sector credit consumers. If additional money is paid, the increase would only be of 2,000 to 3,000 tons, he said.
“But this is all conjecture because nothing has been paid so far and the company is keeping its fingers crossed.”
With oil supplies squeezed, the average hydroelectric power generation fell to a meagre 2,100MW on Tuesday, bringing total generation down to 7,000MW against a demand of 13,000MW.
The planners fear an increase in demand if, as predicted by the meteorological department, it starts raining and snowing again. With a drop in temperature and low gas supplies, people would switch their electric heaters on.
“That could cause a problem in 48 hours,” an official of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) said.
The planners are facing a double jeopardy. If they quickly and fully restore the transmission and distribution system, it would only add to the demand and expose the system to a possibility of collapse again. If they don’t, the popular pressure would mount. This is a balancing act which has made life difficult for everyone in the company.
The supply to some areas of Sindh and Balochistan was still to be revived because the jugglery of power supplies had its own limitations, the official conceded.
According to sources, around 20 per cent independent feeders designated for industries had still not started getting supplies, taking a huge toll on the sector.
“We are promised 24-hour uninterrupted supplies but the industries depending on those feeders have been idle for the past 48 hours and still there is no hope for an early restoration of supply. The power planners tell us that the generation has not been fully restored yet and they cannot spare any additional supply to the industries,” they said.
“The power sector has paid around Rs40bn to the PSO during the past month,” a Pepco official said. Making any additional payment is a time-consuming process both for companies of the sector and the government. The finance ministry will have to arrange money and then the PSO will have to arrange additional supplies.
Both these processes have their own time lag.
There is no fallback in the meantime: no water, no gas. The squeeze thus would continue for at least a few days and the system remained vulnerable to pressure created by high demand and low generation, as was the case on Sunday, he said.
