As of the stroke of midnight Saturday-Sunday (May 31-June 1, 2008) Pakistan officially advanced its clocks by one hour. This “daylight savings” move is a bid to conserve energy in an increasingly energy strapped economy in conditions where everyone agrees that the energy situation is going to get worse well before it gets any better.

The change puts Pakistan six hours ahead of the GMT. This change will last for three months; June-August.

Dawn reports that:

the energy conservation package approved by the Federal Cabinet on May 14 also envisages that during the next three months (June-August), all shopping plazas will close business after 9 p.m. and switch over their weekly holidays from Sunday to Friday, while industries will similarly stagger their weekly offs; WAPDA will not supply power to billboards using lights besides management of street lights. Under Cabinet’s directive the use of air conditioners will be stopped from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. in Prime Minister House, Secretariat and other government offices, while one million energy saver bulbs will be purchased to promote culture of installing such bulbs across the country. The government has already set up a task force to control line losses.

The energy situation in Pakistan is precarious indeed. The economic loss that is being caused by it has to be immense. In all major cities, one seems to spend the entire day waiting for or recovering from the last load-shedding. Indeed, the economic working day in Pakistan is better described as the few hours of electricity in an otherwise electricity-less day, rather than by the hours of load-shedding within a “normal” flow of electricity.

The economic loss has to be measured not only by the economic value that is lost because of the lack of electricity, but also but the resources that are being diverted towards the expenditures necessitated by the new “load-shedding economy.” Those who can afford to, and many who can not, are being forced to spend obnoxious amounts of ineffective, uneconomical, noisy and polluting generators. Those who cannot, try out UPS solutions and the markets are flooded by over-priced and under-performing Chinese “rechargeable” lights and fans (some with built-in radios and other gimmicks). Most, however, have no options but to get used to the new status quo where people are already beginning to describe th day not by how many hours of load-shedding they have but by how many hours of electricity they get!

So, is “daylight savings” the answer? Or, at least, part of the answer?

The history and reality of the idea of daylight savings is itself a fascinating one. The book, Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time by Michael Downing, is a most fascinating account of the history and efficacy of the idea and it is not clear just how useful – if at all – the concept has been in actually saving energy.

To look on the bright side, the decision shows that a certain seriousness has emerged in Pakistan to think seriously about conservation solutions. Everyone seems honestly interested in it. And, quite clearly, conservation has to be a key step. However, this along with the other steps in the new Energy Conservation Plan, even if appropriate, seem like an inadequate attempt to respond to a crisis that demands much more bold strategies.

A simple chronicle of just some of the many posts ATP has carried on the topic shows just how serious a crisis we are in and how much worse it is likely to become:

The Violence of Energy Insecurity
KESC, Karachi and Power Outages
Multiple Crises in Pakistan
Karachi Suffering the Heat
Bijli Bachao Mohem!
Andhair Nagri
Bijli Nama

Imagine 42 degrees celsius (107 degrees Farenheit) weather, no electricity, no fans, high humidity, no drinking water, and knee deep water on streets. Now imagine living through that for more than 24 hours. Terrible!

That is precisely what most Karachiites have been going through for more the past 2 days. A huge monsoonal storm hit the city yesterday, followed by torrential rains. And then the infrastructure of the city that had already suffered several major blows in the past 2 months simply came crashing down. The city now sits in a giant puddle, surrounded by fallen trees, billboards, traffic lights, and rooftops.

Due to the severity of the storm, several trees were pulled out of the ground and are now left stretched across streets, many large bill boards fell on top of passing cars and people, electricity wires were found dangling from the poles leading to several people dying of electrocution, roofs of poorly constructed homes fell killing the residents, rain-related traffic accidents led to further deaths, and now people are suffering without electricity and proper transportation in the maddening heat. Reports are indicating that more than 50 people have died and more than 200 have been injured in Karachi already in the aftermath of the storm. Even those who have lived in the city and watched many monsoons go by are claiming this storm to be among the worst they have weathered. It seems the first wave of the storm has passed by but the city is still struggling to play catch up from all the destruction that it caused.

Karachi has suffered every year in the summer – but this summer has truly been an exception. Loadshedding, whereas practiced for at most a few hours a day in other parts of the country, has been extended to over 10-12 hours each day in Karachi. At least in one part of Karachi, Gulshan Iqbal, residents have had electricity for barely 3-4 hours in the past 48 hours. They have run out of clean water and people are borrowing water from their neighbors who have electricity generators to operate their underground pumps. If one was to take a chopper and fly above those areas at night, one would see most rooftops dotted with chaarpaais. People are routinely taking to the roofs at night to find some air to sleep in.

It is no surprise that there are agitated demonstrations on the streets in almost all parts of the city, resulting in burning of maintenance vehicles, other cars, and of KFC franchise stores. Those with job i n the morning are barely getting a few hours of sleep each night, those living in tall flats and apartments have no roofs to go to, the sick and the elderly are suffering, and food/milk is rotting in their refrigerators. Even those with some influence are suffering. Portable electricity generators have given up in this heat. Others simply can’t afford one that can power major equipment, or can’t afford the fuel to run them 10 hours a day. Given the generator usage in the past month or so in Karachi, I would certainly want our environmental monitoring stations to report the increase in carbon monoxide, ozone and particulate emissions in the city.

Where is the administration amidst all of this mess? There have been pronouncements on TV (it is strange that due to the electricity shortage, I am able to have better access to news on Pakistan TV stations while living in the US than my own family that lives in Pakistan) that the City Nazim has established an emergency cell in his office, but results are yet to be seen. When residents of one area drove to the nearby KESC office to at least learn when to expect the electricity back, they found a big lock outside the door. Fearing their lives, and having no real plan of action, many KESC workers have fled the offices.

Here is what Dawn had to report on the electricity situation:

According to sources, fire broke out in Orangi grid station neutralising seven other grid stations that plunged major part of the city into darkness. Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Federal B Area, North Karachi, Orangi and the adjoining areas remained without power for several hours. This was in addition to sniping of wires and uprooting of electric poles in many localities.

In addition, KESC faced generation shortage as its flagship Bin Qasim was generating only 595MW by sunset and Korangi Thermal Power Plant along with Tapal were off. Supply from Hubco was also interrupted due to tripping in Valika. Owing to this the KESC was only receiving 270MW from WAPDA from Jamshoro Circuit instead of 700MW. The KESC Director Operations claimed that grid stations and feeders had been closed to protect the system from rains.

With the first drop of rain the KESC shut down its 35 grid stations and more than 400 feeders, 30 per cent of the feeders were closed due to tripping while the rest were closed as a precautionary measure. The KESC Director Operations claimed that except for 10 grid stations all were reactivated. But the areas served by the reactivated grids were still in darkness. “This could be due to local faults,� he claimed, however, he had no answer as to who would rectify those faults.

While uprooted poles, broken electric wires were lying on roads, the KESC was still unable to identify them and take measures to secure the area.

Is is shameful that in the largest metropolitan city of the country, people are having to live in these conditions. Everyone that I speak to is on the verge of giving up hope for the city. It appears the administrative system has collapsed, or has been rendered unable to do much in terms of providing relief. The nature and cause of the massive electricity shortage is a topic of another post all by itself, but right now there is a great need for emergency efforts to make sure the elderly, the children, and the ill are provided care in these difficult times. The weather is playing havoc, and the lack of basic amenities is multiplying the suffering.

Summer is in full swing in many parts of Pakistan, and an unfortunate treat of summer, i.e. electricity loadshedding, is also here. As I hear from my parents, losing power for a few hours a day is normal routine in Karachi, and the people are only left guessing for how long would they remain without such a necessary utility. Growing up we used to look for loadshedding schedules in newspapers pretty much the same way people look for Iftar timings during Ramzan.

Loadshedding is an unavoidable problem in Pakistan. In the past, excuses given by the administration for loadshedding were lame at best: heating up of transformers, shutting down of power-gen units, unforeseen technical problems etc. I have wished for the administration to just tell the truth about our inability to produce as much power as we consume. There is simply not enough electricity being produced in the country and given the lack of investments in power generation, the shortage of power is not just a nuisance to the ordinary people who need fans and cold water to cool themselves off, but is also stunting the growth of our industry and economy.

It seems this year the government has decided to tell the truth about the shortage of supply and is already thinking of plans to conserve and “manage” the demand. This is a positive change, and I hope citizens will fully support this effort.

According to a report in the Dawn:

The government is set to introduce this week drastic measures for energy conservation, including closure of commercial activities after sunset and possibly two weekly public holidays, to overcome the energy crisis in the country.

This is part of a larger “demand management plan� which will be announced on Monday in Karachi by Minister for Water and Power Liaquat Ali Jatoi and come into force the following day for about four months, subject to approval by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

It is estimated that while the current shortage of power is roughly 1,000 MW on a total generation capacity of 16,000 MW, the gap is expected to grow to 2,500 MW by the peak of summer.

The government has not been able to plan for the future despite repeated warnings from Nepra and Wapda and failed to firm up enough power generation capacity as the demand continued to increase and the pace of unplanned village electrification was pushed up on political considerations. Installation of two old and rented power stations of about 300MW is the only capacity addition that has taken place in seven years.

Last year, loadshedding was restricted to two-three hours daily in rural areas and between half and one hour daily in most of major cities. The shortage this year has gone up significantly.

It is clear that the gap between our supply and demand would be impossible to bridge, and excessive loadshedding would be necessary, unless our consumption patterns were altered significantly. It is with this consideration that government is attempting to launch a series of actions to reduce consumption, especially at peak hours. This sort of “demand management” is the best thing that the administration can do in the short term, even though it behooves them to think how we will attempt to solve this problem in the long term (the figure above shows the distribution of electricity consumption in Pakistan, 1990-2000).

“Demand management is inevitable now because of a wide gap in energy demand and supply,� the official said, adding: “Demand management is better than loadshedding because it allows people to adjust accordingly, instead of living in uncertainty.�

He said industrial concerns would be required to stagger their weekly holidays on Fridays and Saturdays. This would enable power utilities to supply similar quantities on most days of the week, instead of the lean day on Sunday, he said.

An official close to the secretary for water and power said the ministry had also proposed two weekly holidays – Saturday and Sundays – in the public sector. This will not only be an energy-saving measure but also an alternative for business and commercial concerns against their loss arising out of business closure after sunset. All markets and commercial centres would close at 8pm.

There will be no power supply to wedding halls after 10pm and they will have to arrange their own generators if they desired to prolong their functions. Likewise, public street-lightening will be cut by 50 per cent to save another 25MW of electricity every day.

Various programmes and advertisements will be run on the print and electronic media to persuade the general public to save energy. The government hopes that the measures will effectively bridge the gap between demand and supply and there will be only limited scope for loadshedding.

It is important that all sectors of society contribute equally to the energy conservation program so there is at least some hope of reaching the desired targets. This is a simple requirement off our civic sense and responsibility. I have unfortunately witnessed affluent households running several air conditioners in their homes, while hospitals in certain parts of the same city have had to suspened surgeries in operation theatres because of a lack of power. Shuttering shops a few hours early may feel like a burden on the shopkeepers, but I feel it is worth the effort. Offices, even government ministries, can be kept at elevated temperatures and the AC/s turned down, and perhaps the halogen-lit billboards can also get a break some nights to conserve a few MW? There are many ideas to choose from.

Ofcourse the long term solution lies only in a sustained strategy to conserve, manage, and produce electricity. Pakistan is endowed with natural resources that make electricity production easier than in some other parts of the world. Nuclear-, hydro-, thermo-, wind, solar and other renewables are all possible in Pakistan. But what is needed for the potential to be relaized is a comprehensive energy policy from the government that realizes the need for a long term committment to development of the energy sector. Aside from availability of clean water, this is probably one sector where appropriate government intervention can possibly help.