Ananya Bhattacharya
Mon, January 23, 2023
Millions of people in Pakistan were plunged into darkness today (Jan. 23) due to a failure of the national grid.
At 7.34am local time, Pakistan’s energy ministry announced that there had been a “widespread breakdown.” In Peshawar, some people weren’t able to get drinking water because their pumps weren’t working without electricity. Lahore’s driverless Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) shut abruptly, forcing people to walk along the railway lines. In Pakistan’s most populous city, Karachi, doctors couldn’t attend to ailing patients at private clinics.
The outage happened as an energy-saving measure by the government backfired when technicians weren’t able to reboot the system after switching it off to save energy overnight. Even as 220 million people lost power, energy minister Khurram Dastgir Khan claimed the situation was under control, and restoration work was underway. “There was a fluctuation in voltage and power generating units were shut down one by one due to cascading impact. This is not a major crisis,” Khan said.
Facilities such as hospitals, schools, and businesses that have experience dealing with “load shedding”—the practice of deliberately cutting off power in certain areas for some time to conserve energy—have backup generators that can tide them for some time in the event of a power outage. But for most small businesses and individuals, blackouts immediately cause disruptions. Devices ranging from ATMs to gas filling stations, home security alarms, and even traffic lights can’t function, increasing the chance of accidents.
Why did Pakistan lose power?
This is the second major outage in four months, and one whose scale brought to mind the January 2021 blackout, which was blamed on a technical fault.
In today’s case too, power capacity is not the culprit. Pakistan has enough installed power capacity to meet demand. However, it lacks resources to run its oil-and-gas powered plants. The country’s oil and gas resources are almost completely depleted, making Pakistan dependent on energy imports.
Pakistan’s mounting debt is making it harder to purchase foreign oil and gas, especially as fuel runs scarce in light of the Russia-Ukraine war and a post-pandemic demand surge. Plus, the country lacks the funds to invest in improving transmission infrastructure and installing more power lines, which suffered damage from last year’s floods.
A delay in a much-needed International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout aggravates the country’s precarious position.
Pakistan’s power crisis, by the digits
220 million: People affected by the blackout on Jan. 23
117: Grids hit in the capital Islamabad this time
12 hours: How long it could take to fully restore electricity, according to the power minister
30%: How much Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has asked the all federal departments to cut down their electricity consumption by. Federal employees even got a shorter work week to cut down on power usage
62 billion Pakistani rupees ($273 million): How much money the measure to close malls and markets early (by 8.30pm) and put a hard stop for weddings at 10pm will help the country save
Rs 38 billion: How much money switching to energy-efficient bulbs and fans will help the country save
$10.4 billion: Total liquid foreign reserves held by Pakistan as of Jan. 13, less than half of what it had a year ago, affecting imports, most of which are energy bills
$1.1 billion: Funds that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved to be released to Pakistan in August last year but delayed as the two sides were stuck at an impasse over the conditions, including new tax measures
20 years: How long there has been no discovery of new gas reserves in Pakistan for
25%: Share of the population who have no access to electricity in general, largely in rural areas
Quotable: Citizens irked by Pakistan’s spending priorities
“While we spend billions on protecting our borders & interests (ahem) the country has officially run out of gas, dollars and now electricity. We never had education or infrastructure anyway. Pak’s a business for a chosen few families, the rest of us are mere sheep. #poweroutage” —Popular Pakistani radio and video jockey Anoushey Ashraf in a tweet
Factbox-Why were millions of Pakistanis without electricity?
A man sits outside his shop during a country-wide power breakdown in Karachi
Mon, January 23, 2023
By Sudarshan Varadhan
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Millions of Pakistanis were left without electricity for the second time in three months after a grid failure on Monday, affecting nearly all parts of the country - from the capital Islamabad in the north to Karachi in the south.
Here's a look at what happened, and the immediate prospects for Pakistan's power grid.
WHAT HAPPENED
Pakistan's energy ministry said on Monday the system frequency of its National Grid went down at 0734 hours local time, causing a "widespread breakdown" in the power system.
Energy Minister Khurrum Dastgir told Reuters the outage was caused by a large voltage surge in the south of the country that affected the entire network.
PAKISTAN'S POWER GRID
Pakistan typically meets more than a third of its annual power demand using imported natural gas, prices for which shot up following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
A recent delay in receiving funds under an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme has resulted in the country struggling to buy fuel from abroad. Fuel shipments make up the bulk of Pakistan's import bill, and current foreign exchange reserves barely cover a month's worth of imports.
The government has ordered malls, restaurants and markets to shut by 8.30 pm every day to conserve energy, and ramped up imports of fuel oil to keep lights on in schools, hospitals and factories in the country of 220 million people.
FREQUENT POWER CUTS
Pakistan has been facing hours-long power cuts for months, with rural areas facing longer outages than cities. While the duration of power cuts has come down during the winters, many parts still face power cuts to save fuel costs.
An intense heatwave during the summer of 2022, followed by gas shortages amid surging global natural gas prices, has resulted in crippling power cuts across the country.
GRID FAILURES
Electricity grids fail or break down when there is a big mismatch between demand and supply, sometimes due to unexpected or sudden changes in power use patterns.
In extreme cases, when the gap between supply and demand widens beyond a certain threshold, all generating stations are unplugged from the grid, resulting in a blackout.
It is not immediately clear what the exact cause of Pakistan's grid breakdown was, but power grid frequency typically falls when supply falls short of demand.
Dastgir told the Geo TV channel that some power generators were being taken off the grid during the night in winters as a cost-saving measure, as power demand was low.
When the power generators came back on to the grid on Monday morning, there was a sudden voltage fluctuation, after which the power generating units shut down one by one, he told Geo TV.
Dastgir did not say what type of power generators were disconnected, but a shortage of gas at utilities could have potentially hurt the grid's flexibility.
Gas-fired utilities and hydro power plants are generally the best equipped to handle sudden fluctuations in power demand, as electricity output from these units can be ramped up and down within minutes.
Other utilities such as those running on coal or nuclear fuel operate continuously, making them unsuitable to deal with sudden fluctuations.
RESTORATION
Pakistan expects to restore power to most parts of the country by 2200 hours local time, meaning large swathes of the country will have been in the dark for over 14 hours.
"We are trying our utmost to achieve restoration before that," Dastgir told Reuters.
In a similar case in Bangladesh in October, the country suffered a grid failure that lead to outages in nearly three-quarters of the nation, when it took over 10 hours to restore power.
(Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
A man sits outside his shop during a country-wide power breakdown in Karachi
Mon, January 23, 2023
By Sudarshan Varadhan
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Millions of Pakistanis were left without electricity for the second time in three months after a grid failure on Monday, affecting nearly all parts of the country - from the capital Islamabad in the north to Karachi in the south.
Here's a look at what happened, and the immediate prospects for Pakistan's power grid.
WHAT HAPPENED
Pakistan's energy ministry said on Monday the system frequency of its National Grid went down at 0734 hours local time, causing a "widespread breakdown" in the power system.
Energy Minister Khurrum Dastgir told Reuters the outage was caused by a large voltage surge in the south of the country that affected the entire network.
PAKISTAN'S POWER GRID
Pakistan typically meets more than a third of its annual power demand using imported natural gas, prices for which shot up following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
A recent delay in receiving funds under an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme has resulted in the country struggling to buy fuel from abroad. Fuel shipments make up the bulk of Pakistan's import bill, and current foreign exchange reserves barely cover a month's worth of imports.
The government has ordered malls, restaurants and markets to shut by 8.30 pm every day to conserve energy, and ramped up imports of fuel oil to keep lights on in schools, hospitals and factories in the country of 220 million people.
FREQUENT POWER CUTS
Pakistan has been facing hours-long power cuts for months, with rural areas facing longer outages than cities. While the duration of power cuts has come down during the winters, many parts still face power cuts to save fuel costs.
An intense heatwave during the summer of 2022, followed by gas shortages amid surging global natural gas prices, has resulted in crippling power cuts across the country.
GRID FAILURES
Electricity grids fail or break down when there is a big mismatch between demand and supply, sometimes due to unexpected or sudden changes in power use patterns.
In extreme cases, when the gap between supply and demand widens beyond a certain threshold, all generating stations are unplugged from the grid, resulting in a blackout.
It is not immediately clear what the exact cause of Pakistan's grid breakdown was, but power grid frequency typically falls when supply falls short of demand.
Dastgir told the Geo TV channel that some power generators were being taken off the grid during the night in winters as a cost-saving measure, as power demand was low.
When the power generators came back on to the grid on Monday morning, there was a sudden voltage fluctuation, after which the power generating units shut down one by one, he told Geo TV.
Dastgir did not say what type of power generators were disconnected, but a shortage of gas at utilities could have potentially hurt the grid's flexibility.
Gas-fired utilities and hydro power plants are generally the best equipped to handle sudden fluctuations in power demand, as electricity output from these units can be ramped up and down within minutes.
Other utilities such as those running on coal or nuclear fuel operate continuously, making them unsuitable to deal with sudden fluctuations.
RESTORATION
Pakistan expects to restore power to most parts of the country by 2200 hours local time, meaning large swathes of the country will have been in the dark for over 14 hours.
"We are trying our utmost to achieve restoration before that," Dastgir told Reuters.
In a similar case in Bangladesh in October, the country suffered a grid failure that lead to outages in nearly three-quarters of the nation, when it took over 10 hours to restore power.
(Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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