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14 dysfunctional power plants causing 10-16 hour loadshedding

ISLAMABAD: With 14 power generation plants rendered dysfunc-tional for various reasons, including six that have shut down purely due to non-availability of fuel (furnace oil), a massive shortfall of 3,576 MW has hit the system, causing daily loadshedding to be in-creased to almost 10-12 hours in Punjab’s urban areas and 15-16 hours in rural areas. To add to the worries, the remaining power generating companies too are left with just 3-4 days of oil stocks. This alarming picture has been revealed by the data compiled by the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco).

In its official stance, however, Pepco claims that power deficit stands at 1,989 MW. According to the Pepco document (available with The News), Muzzafargarh Genco is left with three days of oil stocks for power generation whereas the Kot Addu power plant has fuel for just one more day of power generation operation.

In some industrial cities of the Punjab, such as Faisalabad, Gu-jranwala, Gujrat, Sialkot and Lahore, the industrial production has plummeted by 50 to 60 percent and many production units have been closed down, fueling unemployment. The document reveals that 12 power plants have shut down because of technical faults. It says that the Kot Addu Power Plant unit-14 of 170 MW is non-functional in the wake of control fault; KAPCO unit-2 of 120 MW because of vibration problem; Guddu Power unit-1 of 75 MW is closed because of streamline blast, Guddu unit-6 of 65 MW be-cause of delay in up-gradation; Guddu-8 of 80 MW because of de-lay in filter replacement; Guddu unit-13 of 96 MW because of con-trol valve problem; Lakhra unit of 30 MW because of feed water pump problem; Jamshoro Unit-2 of 180 MW is closed as its air pre-heater has got choked; Jamshoro unit-3 of 170 MW is non functional because of dummy water shortage; NGrS Multan unit-1 of 30 MW because of boiler tube leakage and Muzzafargarh-unit 6 of 170 MW because its air pre-heater has got choked.

The document also unveils that four power plants are closed due to the floods. These include AES Lalpir of 350 MW, AES PakGen 350 MW, Jagran power 30 MW and Malakanat-III unit of 64 MW.

The six power plants which are nonfunctional in the wake of non-availability of fuel include Kapco unit 3,4,7 of 360 MW, Japan Power of 38 MW, Saba Power of 125 MW, Guddu unit-4 of 150 MW, GTPS Kotri of 75 MW, GTPS Faisalabad of 210 MW and SPS Faisalabad unit 2 of 60 MW. Moreover, four power plants have been shut down because of the scheduled maintenance.

The document also divulges that the country is right now getting hydro generation of 4,662 MW as the water releases from dam have increased to 75,000 cusecs per day from the Tarbela Dam and 35,000 cusecs per day from the Mangla Dam in the wake of demand of water from the provinces for sowing the Rabi crops.

The public sector thermal power generation currently stands at just 1,850 MW whereas power generation by IPPs (independent power plants) stands at 4,600 MW. The country is also getting just 62 MW from Rental Power Plants (RPPs).