It has now been a little over three years that we Pakistanis have been experiencing power shortages. Each year promises to be better, but is worse than the last. When will it all end, nobody knows, perhaps never. The Government has been busy making promises, which have never been fulfilled. I was in Kashmir when this thing started in 2006, and right then I made a decision to buy a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). Then in 2008 I moved to Lahore and all hell broke loose. In Kashmir load-shedding (as it is called here) was normally for 2~3 hours daily, but in Lahore we experienced up to 8 hours of power outages during peak summers. Surely the UPS wasn’t built for this kind of use. So I had to buy another one, which was more powerful, imported and with a bigger battery. This, I have been using for the last two years. Being an Electrical engineer I have plans to go Solar 100%, but paucity of funds will not let me do this. Other than this, one can buy a Generator if he/she can afford the sky rocketing fuel prices. Wind energy is not an option either since there isn’t much wind in Lahore to drive a Wind Turbine successfully for electricity generation.
So what do we do? Or what can we do? Nothing much except that we can and should use less electricity, or in other words try to conserve it. The Government isn’t doing much. The RPP’s that have been installed haven’t started contributing to the National Grid (at least some of them, for whatever reasons). The so called Political Government can’t even build a consensus on the darned Kalabagh Dam. Such a pity,we can’t even agree on issues that affect us. And Thar coal? Well that perhaps is waiting for some Divine intervention. The least these Goons can do is start utilizing the plentiful coal deposits.
The wind corridors in coastal areas of Sind and Balochistan can be used for generating electricity from wind. But, the question is “who will bell the cat?”
My Random Ramblings 