Unscheduled load shedding darkens night

[LRE]

Unscheduled load shedding darkens night

By Hasan Ali


LAHORE: Unscheduled load shedding has once again gripped the city, as the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) has shifted the forced load shedding to midnight.

The residents of various localities of the city, including the Defence Housing Authority (DHA), Gulberg, Cantonment, Shadman and Garden Town, have been facing unscheduled load shedding of one to three hours during the night for the past few weeks.

Recently, as temperatures cooled after heavy rainfalls, the unscheduled load shedding was reduced throughout the city. However, as rainfall has decreased and the humidity is irritating people, the use of air conditioners has increased. With the increased load, LESCO has started to initiate unscheduled load shedding at midnight in various parts of the city.

Shortage: Sources in the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) informed Daily Times that it has started unscheduled load shedding to save its system from a potential complete failure. WAPDA is currently facing a 4,000 to 4,500 megawatt shortage. “Currently, the electricity demand has increased to 16,500-17,000 megawatts, while the generation is still 12,000 to 13,000 megawatts,” they added.

They said that the thermal generation had reduced by 500 to 1,000 megawatts within the last few days as the independent power producers (IPPs) had shutdown their machines for maintenance, resulting in unscheduled load shedding.

They said, “Unscheduled load shedding is usually shifted to the night to provide relief to the masses, as otherwise they would suffer from the heat during the day.” They added that the situation might become better during the coming days as the weather might change and reduce the demand.

Mehreen Raza said that WAPDA and LESCO had been saying that the country’s dams did not have sufficient water but now the whole country was flooded and the dams were overflowing.

She said, “The quarters concerned are deliberately creating an artificial shortage of electricity to trouble the masses.”

“It is a very critical situation for my family when the unscheduled load shedding is carried out at night,” she said, adding that schools had re-opened and load shedding caused her children top wake up as the air conditioner switched off.

NPCC and RCC: A senior LESCO official said that LESCO was conducting load shedding according to its schedule, and that the National Power Control Centre (NPCC) and Regional Control Centre (RCC) were responsible for the forced load shedding to ensure that the system was not damaged.

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