Power shortfall likely to rise as fire erupts in Mangla Dam's unit 5
Power production reduces to 350MW after three units of the dam have been closed.
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Electricity loadshedding likely to increase in various cities after the power shortfall in the country has exceeded 4,500 mega watts (MW) from 3,500MW.
According to sources, public thermal power plants are not producing electricity according to their capacity despite sufficient fuel supply. They said that power distribution companies have been providing low voltage to reduce loadshedding duration.
The sources further said loadshedding duration can be increased to 16-houre if voltage is not reduced.
Meanwhile, power production has been reduced to 350MW after closure of three units of Mangla Dam.
Several areas of country are experiencing power outages of 12-15 hours daily while the situation in some cities of Punjab is even worse.
Power generation in the country stands at 13,350 MW while demand is 16,900MW.
On the other hand, Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali had claimed that the government was proactively executing diverse programmes to overcome the energy crisis.
The minister said the present government had taken a number of measures to resolve these issues, including successful initiation and implementation of the National Power Policy 2013, clearance of Rs480 billion circular debt, bringing additional 1,700MW to the national grid, improvement in demand and supply side management and development of cheap energy resources to achieve optimum results through short-, mid- and long-term projects.
