Line losses, theft major causes of load shedding: official

LAHORE: The major cause of load shedding in the country is line losses and theft of electricity, an official said on Thursday

“Electricity theft is on the higher side all over the country. In Punjab, the department caught such power thieves who were using high tech. Other provinces had a system of kunda which the government has tried to control in the last few years,” Former Federal Secretary Energy Irfan Ali said.

He gave these remarks while speaking at “Energy Sector Reforms-Increase in Cost of Doing Business” jointly organised by the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and the Lahore Economic Journalists Association (LEJA).

“Due to theft, circular debt has increased to more than Rs35 billion/month which puts pressure on the entire system. In view of this, a nationwide campaign was launched. The department had ended load shedding on all those feeders where theft was controlled,” Ali said.

The circular debt had been brought to Rs12 billion in two years which was a great achievement, he said, adding that the withdrawal of subsidy for consumers using 300 units/month would increase power theft and poverty.

“Our energy mix consists of 26 per cent Hydel, 26 per cent regasified liquefied natural gas (RLNG), 8 per cent gas, 6 per cent nuclear and 5 per cent renewable energy. We need to work on increasing the share of hydel and alternative energy sources for reducing the cost of electricity,” he said.

Former managing director Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) Tahir Basharat Cheema said that the installed capacity of the country was 33,000MW. Independent power producers (IPPs) and private power generation have made electricity so expensive that the industry was out of competition.

The biggest challenges for this sector were unannounced load shedding, power theft and the collection of bills as the collection of uncollected bills has reached to Rs1.6 trillion.

LCCI president Mian Nauman Kabir urged the government to provide cheap energy and loans to the business community, adding that it was the only way to accelerate the development of the country.

He said that businesses and the country could be developed only by providing cheap energy and loans. “We need to focus on our energy mix,” he said.

Being the premier business support organisation of the country, the LCCI has always advocated for taking concrete measures to bring reforms in the energy sector.

Although Pakistan has enhanced its power generation capacity considerably in recent times, still it was far away from a cost-effective energy mix as a heavy percentage (around 60 per cent) of energy was still generated from expensive fossil fuel based thermal sources, while the share of cheaper renewables (including solar, wind and biogas) was less than 5 per cent, Kabir said.

He said that the increased dependence on expensive thermal power generation has over the time resulted in tariff hikes, subsidies, circular debt, inefficiencies while hampering the competitiveness of the industrial sector, both locally and internationally.

LCCI president Mian Nauman Kabir, senior vice president Mian Rehman Aziz Chan, former managing director Pepco Tahir Basharat Cheema and LEJA president Sudhir Chaudhry also spoke on the occasion.