ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Federal Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Muhammad Asif on Monday said around 4,500 MW electricity would be added to the national grid system by May 2017.
While addressing at press conference in Islamabad, the minister said 1000-1500 MW hydel,,400 MW from Guddu and 1200 MW from closed power plants of Uch-II, HUBCO, Chashma II would be added to the system.
Similarly, Nandipur Power Plant would start providing full 525 MW by May after converting it into gas, he added.
The minister said as per the agreement, a gas company would provide gas to Nandipur power plant and it would provide 525 MW to the system.
Khawaja Asif said power load-shedding would be reduced to 3 to 4 hours in urban and five hour in rural areas by end of this month.
The federal minister said hydel power generation would jumped from 2000 MW to about 3500 MW by April 20. He said some power plants having around 1200 MW were on scheduled maintenance and would come up in-line by this month.
Asif said additional 4000-5000 MW electricity would be available in the next month.
The minister said the demand surged due to unprecedented rise in temperature for the first time in April. The unprecedented heat wave and higher demand couple with low hydel generation forced into unscheduled load-shedding, he added.
However, he said it would be overcome during next two to three weeks.
The minister clarified that despite low hydel generation, the overall generation was still higher by 1000-MW as compared to last year while load-shedding was also low as compare to last year.
Asif said 10,000 MW electricity would be added to the grid in the next 12 months.
About performance of power sector during the last two years, he said recoveries were improved from 88.6 per cent to 93.8 per cent while losses witnessed down trend from 19.1 per cent to 17.9 percent.
The federal minister said zero load-shedding has been observed for industry since October 2015. He said power tariff had also come down for solar from Rs 17 to Rs 6 per unit; for wind Rs 15 to Rs 6.5 per unit, Regassified LNG from Rs 9.5 to Rs 6.6 per unit and coal is expected to go down from Rs 8.5 to Rs 7 per unit.
The minister said today total generation stood at 12,586 MW against DISCOs and K-Electric demands of 17,140 MW.
Replying to a question, Asif said the circular debt stood at Rs 385 billion. He said special audit was carried out into clearness of Rs 480 billion circular debt in 2013.
About Neelum Jhelum Project, the minister said that it would start generation next year.
Regarding Sindh concerns over water cut, the minister said all provinces had their representative in IRSA and current chairman of the authority was also from Sindh.
The minister said IRSA had full record of water storage and release.
The Secretary Water and Power Yousaf Naseem Khokar and former secretary Muhammad Younas Daga were also present on the occasion.
