LAHORE: Announced and unannounced load shedding continued across Lahore as the LESCO region recorded a shortfall of 1,000 megawatts, leaving residents in extreme heat and humidity without power for hours at a stretch.
Electricity demand in the LESCO region reached 5,200 megawatts against a supply of 4,200 megawatts, producing the 1,000-megawatt gap. Because of the shortfall, load shedding of several hours at a time began in numerous localities.
Load shedding was reported in Islampura, Sanda, Outfall Road, Sant Nagar, Sham Nagar and Rewaz Garden, and continued in Gulberg, Faisal Town, Walton and Township among other areas.
Power was also being cut at intervals in Township, Green Town, Sabzazar and Samanabad, while residents in Ichhra, Shadman, Iqbal Town, Marghzar, Chungi Amar Sidhu and Nishtar Colony among other locations reported disruption.
Residents said the cuts in severe heat were badly affecting daily routines, and called for an immediate end to unannounced load shedding. Citizens urged LESCO officials to take notice and act to stop unscheduled outages.
A spokesperson for the Power Division said the unavailability of re-gasified liquefied natural gas and a delay in cargo affected electricity generation overnight.
According to the spokesperson, 3,600 megawatts of generation was affected, and temporary load management was carried out following a reduction of 195 megawatts from Mangla. Temporary load management of between one and a half and three hours was required during night peak hours, and furnace oil plants were also run to meet night-time peak demand.
The spokesperson said temporary load management during night hours will be reduced as soon as the RLNG cargo arrives, and asked consumers to moderate electricity use during night peak hours so that load management remains limited. No load management is being carried out anywhere in the country during daytime hours, the spokesperson said, adding that supply is being maintained according to the fixed schedule in high-loss areas as well.
The Power Division spokesperson apologised to consumers for the temporary load management caused by the unavailability of RLNG.
The distinction the Power Division statement draws is important and is often lost in public debate. Pakistan’s installed generation capacity substantially exceeds peak demand. The country does not lack power plants. What it lacks, at specific moments, is fuel to run them and the fiscal room to pay for that fuel.
RLNG is imported on long-term contracts supplemented by spot cargoes, and a single delayed cargo removes a large block of generation at once because Pakistan’s most efficient combined-cycle plants are gas-fired. When that block disappears, the system falls back on the next-cheapest available option — in this case furnace oil, which is dramatically more expensive per unit and which the country has spent a decade trying to phase out.
That fallback is why an overnight supply problem eventually reaches the consumer twice: once as darkness, and again months later as a fuel-cost adjustment on the bill.
The 195-megawatt reduction from Mangla points to the second variable, hydrology. Hydel output fluctuates with reservoir levels and with irrigation releases, which are governed by agricultural need rather than electricity demand. Late-season variation in the Mangla contribution is normal; it becomes critical only when thermal generation is simultaneously constrained.
Three indicators will show whether this is a passing disruption or the start of a difficult September. The arrival date of the delayed RLNG cargo; whether daytime load management, currently reported as nil, begins to appear; and whether LESCO publishes an actual outage schedule for the affected feeders. Unannounced load shedding is the specific grievance in the complaints from Lahore residents — not the absence of power, but the absence of any way to plan around it.
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