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Hydropower Lift Steadies Pakistan’s Peak Supply as LNG Shortage Keeps Load Shedding

A fuel squeeze that has idled 5,500 megawatts of gas-fired capacity is expected to keep peak-hour cuts in place until LNG shipments resume in early May.

Overview

  • Officials said hydropower reached about 4,950 to 5,125 megawatts during recent peak hours, and an extra 400 megawatts flowed from the south, yet utilities still imposed roughly two to two-and-a-half hours of evening load management.
  • About 5,500 megawatts of LNG-based generation remains offline due to a lack of fuel, and the Power Division says peak-time cuts should end once LNG deliveries restart in early May.
  • Lahore Electric Supply Company reported an evening demand of 3,787 megawatts against 3,053 megawatts of supply, a 682 megawatt gap that led to two-hour curbs on commercial and industry-heavy feeders while uninterrupted power continued for independent industry.
  • Residents in parts of Punjab continue to report far longer and unannounced outages than officials describe, with some rural areas earlier citing 12 to 16 hours without power, highlighting a sharp gap between policy and lived experience.
  • The government defends revenue-based load shedding on high-loss feeders to deter theft and limit financial losses, but the regulator NEPRA and the Law Ministry have called the practice illegal, setting up a policy and legal clash that could shape how cuts are assigned.