Amid anticipated higher electricity shortfalls later this month owing to canal closures, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday directed that expensive furnace oil based power plants be phased out with alternative fuels.
He was presiding over a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Energy, which concluded prematurely because of Peshawar tragedy. It was decided to convene a meeting again on Thursday to finalise the implementation strategy for load management.
Informed sources said that the Indus River System Authority (Irsa), in consultation with provincial governments had put in place canal closure plan for annual maintenance beginning Dec 25 and continuing up to Jan 31 across the country.
Under the plan, canals originating from Kotri barrage would be kept closed from Dec 25 and Jan 10 while Sukkur would be closed between Jan 6 and 20.
Chashma Right Bank Canal would be closed between Jan 1 and 31 while Taunsa canal would not be provided irrigation water between Jan 1 and 15. Tarimu and Thal canals would be closed with effect from Jan 11 and 13, respectively.
As a consequence, the currently available peak hydropower generation of about 4,500MW would tumble down to about 1,200-1,300MW, creating an additional electricity shortfall of about 3,000MW. To cope with this, the government would have to bring into production some of the expensive power plants that would need to be run on furnace oil.
They said the Ministry of Water and Power was also campaigning for diversion of some natural gas from industrial sector during this lean period to run Wapda’s generation plants on gas instead of furnace oil.
The sources said the load-shedding period was anticipated to be increased from existing six hours per day to about eight hours in big cities and 10 hours in rural areas.
