ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: Power was “fully” restored in cities across Pakistan early Tuesday morning, the country’s energy ministry said, almost 24 hours after a nationwide blackout due to a grid failure.
This was the second nationwide blackout in three months due to a frequency failure in the national grid, which happens because of a major mismatch between demand and supply.
Pakistan’s energy ministry said on Monday the system frequency of its National Grid went down at 0734 hours, causing a “widespread breakdown” in the power system.
“We have fully restored the electricity at all grid stations across Pakistan,” Muhammad Ismail, a spokesperson for the energy ministry, told Arab News.
Power was restored at all 1,112 grid stations of all nine power distribution companies across the country except for Karachi, where K-Electric is responsible for the provision of electricity, according to the energy ministry.
The supply of electricity fully resumed at 0625 hours on Tuesday, with a generation of 9,704 megawatts.
Imran Rana, a KE spokesperson, said after the restoration of connection between Karachi and the national grid, electricity supply to the metropolis had further improved.
“All K-Electric are currently active and the restoration of power on local level is also underway,” Rana said on Twitter.
“However, limited load management can be carried out in the city to keep the system stable.”
Afshan Muddasir, a spokesperson for the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO), said electricity had been fully restored in Lahore by 1am on Tuesday.
“There is no more breakdown as the power supply had been fully restored by 1am. But we are doing load management as it takes some time to supply power in full capacity after a complete breakdown,” Muddasir told Arab News.
For example, she said, Lahore had a demand of 3,000 megawatts and the city was currently getting half of it. “In such a situation, we will do load management at least for 48 hours till there is full capacity,” she added.
While Pakistan has enough installed capacity to meet its demand, the South Asian country lacks adequate resources to run its oil- and gas-powered plants. The energy sector is also heavily in debt and cannot afford to invest in new infrastructure and power lines, which often result in transmission losses.
For Pakistanis, Monday’s nationwide loss of power was a frustrating continuation of hardships brought by an economy in a tailspin for months, with foreign reserves running out, inflation at decades-high levels and industrial growth slowing down.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered an investigation into Monday’s breakdown and sought an “immediate report” from the energy minister.
“Why did such a massive crisis of electricity arise,” the PM was quoted as asking in a statement. “Those responsible should be identified ... the difficulties of masses are intolerable.”
Monday’s blackout reminded of one in Pakistan’s southern regions in October, when it took a whole day for power to be restored in major urban centers in Sindh and Balochistan provinces.
It was also reminiscent of a massive blackout in January 2021, attributed at the time to a technical fault in the country’s power generation and distribution system.
