In the last few weeks, Pakistan has been hit by a strong heat wave, severely increasing the electricity demand of the 220 million inhabitants nation.
Broad steps have been taken by local and federal authorities to face this challenge, including ordering numerous shops and businesses to shut at 9 p.m to save energy or reducing the number of working days per week from 6 to 5.
In such extreme episodes, Pakistan’s maximum electricity demand stands at nearly 29 GW, whereas the transmission and distribution capacity is stalled at 22 GW. This situation leads to a deficit of about 7 GW when the demand peaks due to the limitations of the transmission and distribution system even though the country’s installed electricity generation capacity reached 41,5 GW in 2022.
As more than half of Pakistan’s energy mix depends on fossil fuels, this deficit aggravates the steep rise in costs in a context of dramatic recent increase of fossil fuels prices.