Explained: Pakistan’s severe power crisis, and its measures to survive it

The load-shedding, which has hit both citizens and the industry, has forced PM Shehbaz Sharif's government to announce an urgent plan to conserve energy. What has led to this situation, and how Pakistan is trying to tide over this crisis?

Supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political party wave flags and chant slogans during a country-wide protest, called by the ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan, against the fuel price hike in Karachi. (Reuters)

Pakistan continues to reel under a severe electricity crisis with both urban and rural areas across the country facing excruciatingly extended power outages. The load-shedding, which has hit both citizens and the industry, has forced PM Shehbaz Sharif’s government to announce an urgent plan to conserve energy. What has led to this situation, and how Pakistan is trying to tide over this crisis?

How bad is the situation?

On June 6, Pakistan government announced that it has decided to reduce scheduled power cuts to 3.5 hours daily, adding that by June 30 this will be brought down to 2 hours daily.

The country is currently producing 22,000 MW of power against a requirement of 26,000 MW. While this comes out to a 4,000 MW shortfall, some media reports from Pakistan have pegged the shortfall at around 7,800 MW. According to a June 7 report in the Daily Times, Karachi at that time was experiencing outages going up to 15 hours, while Lahore was without power for nearly 12 hours.

What has led to this?

Most power plants in Pakistan are run on imported fuel. This makes the country increasingly vulnerable to global supply shocks.

The global energy crunch, which is being fueled by the Ukraine invasion and also the post-pandemic demand surge, has seen Pakistan’s energy import costs almost double over the past few months.

While rising fuel prices and strengthening dollar have made power generation a costly affair for Pakistan, distribution companies have been blamed for failing to cut line-losses.

Prime Minister Sharif said on Tuesday that Pakistan does not have enough money to buy oil and gas, ARY News reported.

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The power crisis has come at a time when Pakistan is in dire need of external finances with its foreign reserves falling below $10 billion. That’s roughly a 50 per cent drop from August and enough to pay for less than two months of imports, a Bloomberg report said.

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How is Pakistan trying to manage the crisis?

To battle one of its worst energy crisis, the government, after an emergency meeting on Wednesday, announced measures to bridge the demand-supply gap.

As part of the plan, markets across the country will shut down at 8.30 pm. It has been decided to ban wedding functions after 10 pm in Islamabad, with reports indicating that police have been directed to ensure that the ban is strictly enforced. All public offices and educational institutions will follow a five-day work week to conserve energy. Further, a panel has been set up to look into the possibility of making Friday a mandatory work-from-home day for government employees. Discussions are also underway with provinces to only operate street lights on alternate days. Pakistan, reports said, hopes to lower government offices’ energy consumption by 10 per cent by adheraing to these measures.