Load shedding likely to worsen as two power plants go offline

LAHORE – Amid a scorching heat and humidity, the power outages across Pakistan are likely to swell in days to come as two power plants have already been taken off the grid due to maintenance purposes. Bhikki and Sapphire power plants went out of the system for regular maintenance purposes that led to lowering the local generation and overloading the 500kV system of the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC). Chief executive officer of the Quaid-i-Azam Thermal Power (Private) Limited, Mr Ahad Khan Cheema explained that the recently inaugurated Bhikki plant was closed for inspections that include checking some combined cycle conversion activities. ‘The process takes three days that was already planned. So there is no problem with the plant so far’ he said. ‘Please keep in mind that Bhikki is an under-construction plant. And it will have many such closures in the near future,’ he added. National Power Construction Corporation General Manager Ilyas Ahmad told a harrowing news in a conversation with Dawn News that