Consumers facing low voltage due to lengthy LT line: Abid Sher Ali

ISLAMABAD, Apr 13 (APP): Minister of State for Water and Power
Abid Sher Ali on Thursday said that due to lengthy LT line, the
consumers were facing low voltage problem.
Speaking in the National Assembly during question hour, he
said the material has been allocated vide Manager (MM) MEPCO
allocation and work will be completed by 30-4-2017.
He said that all the IPPs were generating electricity in the
country at present in accordance with respective dependable
capacity, except for any planned/schedule maintenance outage.
However, he said in case IPPs generate less electricity than
their generating capacity they were liable to heavy penalties, which
are more than the fixed capacity payments.
The efficiency of each IPP is determined at the Commercial
Operation Date (COD) and the IPPs were required throughout the term
of period to maintain it while in case of loss of efficiency IPPs
were subject to penalty, he added.
The determination of penalty was done by NEPRA as it comes in
its mandate, Abid said.
Abid Sher Ali said that government has taken various steps to
eliminate load shedding of electricity in the country by the year
2018.
Due to sincere and hectic effort of the government, the
generation capacity of electricity was continuously increasing
whereas load shedding was gradually decreasing inspite of continuous
increase in electricity demand.
For incoming summer season, approximately 3870 MW Generation
was expected to be added in the National Grid by June 2017, he
informed the lower house.
However, expected load shedding plan in coming summer season
was including four hours in urban, six in rural while nil in
industry.
He said, the government was committed to reduce load shedding
of electricity to minimum level with objective to improve the socio-
economic conditions in the country.
This was possible mainly by reducing generation cost of
electricity, the minister said.
To achieve the aforesaid objectives, the steps were being
taken including installation of Hydel and Coal Power Plants,
capacity improvement in power generation and consumption mix.
The other objectives were elimination of load shedding in
industrial sector, improvement in transmission & distribution system
to reduce losses, LNG-based generation to reduce cost by replacing
diesel oil, he added.
Abid said that constant review of operational system of
distribution companies and improvement in recovery and losses by
constant interaction with distribution companies.