Govt Plans New System to Cut Power Only in Areas With Electricity Theft

• The proposed system will cover around 190,000 transformers, allowing targeted disconnections instead of shutting down entire feeders.
• Awais Leghari says the regulatory framework is expected by April or May next year, with separate rules for a virtual grid also being prepared.
• The minister denies additional load-shedding and says avoiding power cuts would otherwise add Rs6 per unit to consumers’ bills.

The federal government plans to introduce a transformer-level electricity control system to tackle power theft while reducing disruption to other consumers, Federal Minister for Power Awais Leghari said on Wednesday.

Speaking to journalists at Parliament House, the minister said the proposed mechanism would allow authorities to switch individual transformers on or off, removing the need to disconnect an entire feeder when theft or non-compliance is detected in a particular area.

The system is intended to cover around 190,000 electricity transformers. Under the arrangement, authorities would be able to disconnect the transformer serving the affected area rather than interrupting supply to every consumer connected to the feeder.

Leghari said similar technology was already being used in several countries and that work was underway on the implementation framework. The necessary regulatory framework is expected to be finalised by April or May next year.

The minister rejected reports that additional load-shedding was taking place across the country, maintaining that no extra outages were currently being imposed.

Discussing net metering, he said changes to the system had encouraged consumers to install batteries to store electricity. He said the government wanted to prevent costs associated with a relatively small group of consumers from being passed on to the wider population.

According to Leghari, the changes had prevented the financial burden of around 300,000 to 400,000 consumers from being shifted to the remaining 35 million electricity consumers.

Separately, briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Energy, chaired by Muhammad Idrees, the minister said the government had begun preparing regulations for a virtual grid system that would enable people to generate and store their own electricity.

He said upgrading the power system would require substantial investment and that approval for the necessary expenditure would be sought from the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra). Applications for net metering, he added, continued to arrive in large numbers.

Leghari also told the committee that the Petroleum Division was unable to receive liquefied natural gas cargoes because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. In response, he said, the government was making prudent use of locally produced gas.

Explaining the need for load-shedding, the minister said consumers would otherwise face an additional charge of Rs6 per unit in their electricity bills.