LAHORE, Dec 26: The power supply situation deteriorated further on Wednesday with peak-hour shortage reaching over 2,000MW, or 20 per cent of the total demand of 10,000MW, an unprecedented level for winter.

The shortage forced the Pakistan Electric Power Company (PepCo) to enforce a four-hour daily loadshedding plan across the country.

Blaming the shortage on low water release from dams and suspension of gas supplies to power units, PepCo officials said they feared the situation would not only persist over the next few weeks but might deteriorate further.

Munawar Baseer Ahmad, Managing Director of the company, said that PepCo could do nothing as the water release from dams had dropped to a paltry 20,000 cusecs, enough to generate only 1,672MW.

The hydropower generation picture becomes even bleaker when taken against the backdrop of the summer peak generation of 6,600MW. With gas supply already suspended, the rental power plants of 380MW have gone out of operation. Though the Kot Adu power plant is being run on alternative fuel, its generation has dropped by some 300MW. The total shortage created by the stoppage of gas supply to power plants was around 600MW, he said.

Thermal plants of the company, which could produce over 2,900MW with improved fuel supplies, generated only 2,200MW on Wednesday because of the fuel shortage. In these circumstances, the company did not have any room for manoeuvring, Mr Ahmad pointed out.

The independent power producers (IPPs), with a capacity to generate 5,200MW, were able to provide only 4,500MW on Wednesday, inflating the deficit by another 700MW.

Explaining the current crunch, another PepCo official said that the company had tried hard to get an additional 8,000 cusecs of water from the Tarbella dam on the Christmas day, but the federal secretary for water and power failed to arrange it. “People in the government keep boasting about foreign exchange reserves hitting a record level, but the government is reluctant to spend money on oil purchase. With the company working in these conditions, no one really knows what it can do to alleviate the power poverty,” the official said.

Tahir Basharat Cheema, Director of PepCo (General Energy Management and Conservation) said that only a “deadly serious conservation effort” could save the situation now.

He said that although the company had been able to get lights of billboards and entertainment ceremonies switched off, domestic consumers had not been fully cooperating.

He said that during 5pm to 6pm there was a quantum jump of 1,400MW in demand on Wednesday. All of it had come from domestic consumption, he said, adding the company now planned to launch a national level campaign to make domestic consumers part of the power-saving efforts.

He said the company planned to suggest to the government to ask shopkeepers to pull down shutters by 7pm in winter to bridge the widening gap between demand and supply.

He said it was alright to allow markets to stay open till 8pm during summer, but the government should ensure strict market closures by 7pm in winter to save itself from political and social embarrassment during the coming election weeks.