MUHAMMAD SHAFA

KARACHI: K-Electric's residential consumers, particularly those living in city's slum areas are likely to face load-shedding even during Sehr and Iftar in the holy month of Ramazan after the KE linked the exemption with additional 300MW power supply from the national grid.

"The supply of additional power from national grid is critical to meeting Karachi's peak summer demand," said KE official, adding that they had already requested Ministry of Energy (Power Division) for an additional 300MW power; however, the principle approval, in this regard, is still awaited. He expressed hope that the ministry would nod shortly.

When asked regarding the new load-shedding schedule, a KE spokesperson said it would be announced as soon as KE's request for additional supply of electricity was approved by the concerned authority.

A few months back, K-Electric intimated the Ministry of Energy (Power Division) that due to the delay in finalising its multi-year tariff, many of its planned investments in generation projects had been delayed; therefore KE is anticipating a power shortfall in Karachi during the peak summer period.

Answering the query why Karachi is expected to face a shortage of power, the spokesperson said that a number of projects expected to begin by now had been delayed because of circumstances out of our control. The most noticeable among these was the 900MW BQPS-III which would have been enough to fulfill additional demand.

Spokesperson clarified that the generation project timeline had been affected as the multi-year tariff determined by NEPRA took much longer time than anticipated and was not in line with what had been requested to stimulate further investment in generation, transmission and distribution. KE had foreseen this demand and had been engaging various stakeholders for some time.

KE has made every effort to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page and that there is no gap. It has invested more than US$ 2.1 billion in infrastructure upgrades across the energy value chain over the last 9 years and plans to invest another US$ 3 billion over the next few years. KE said it was committed to increase generation as well as to upgrade Karachi's transmission and distribution network.

On April 12, KE had announced to provide maximum relief to its consumers during the Sehr and Iftar times. It said it had taken various measures during the last year to further enhance the reliability and availability of power supply, including addition of 50MW through a solar-based IPP while principal approval for an additional 150MW from the national grid has also been granted by the Ministry of Energy (Power Division).