LAHORE – Despite the claims of the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) that nine-hour loadshedding is being conducted at city feeders, the outages’ duration is touching 14-hour a day in the provincial metropolis while situation is more miserable in rural areas and small towns of Punjab where the power consumers are facing above 18-hour shutdown.But, an official of the power sector told this scribe that the power distribution companies (DISCOs) could not be blamed fully for such intensity of loadshedding as what they were getting from the national grid, they were distributing among consumers. Actually, the official said, lack of government attention towards arranging fuel for several out-of-fuel power plants and low hydel generation have increased the electricity shortfall up to 6500MW, around 40 per cent of the total demand. Owing to the low supply of fuel and gas to power plants, the current power generation is standing at around 11,000 MW while the demand has jumped to around 17500MW. “KAPCO Power Plant of around 900MW is out of fuel. The power plants of SAIF, HALMORE and Orient are not dispatching power due to non-availability of oil and gas. Oil stock for GENCOs is critically low,” said the official. The power managers believe that gap between demand and supply can be shortened and around 3000MW can be easily added in the system if the government arrange fuel for the power plants. According to the newly created Energy Management Cell, the Monday’s power shortfall was 6423MW due to shortage of oil and gas. Sources said that the deficit crossed 6500MW on Tuesday. Lahore is witnessing one hour shutdown after every hour while at some grid stations in under-developed areas the power cuts sustain for more than two to three hours. The situation is same in the limits of FESCO, MEPCO, GEPCO and IESCO as well.  “Hydel power plants are generating up to 4527 MW, thermal 1267 MW and 5717 MW electricity is being supplied by IPPs,” said the Cell. 

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