LAHORE:Amid scorching heat and humid weather, the provincial capital is facing a critical energy crisis as widespread, unannounced, and extended electricity outages disrupt daily life, creating significant challenges for residents in various neighbourhoods.
Infuriated over persistent outages, people residing along Mian Mir Bridge, Dharampura disrupted vehicular traffic after placing obstacles on a road in protest. Shouting slogans against power managers, they demanded restoration of uninterrupted electricity supply in their localities. They particularly highlighted that nighttime outages have made their lives like a hell.
Power failures have been reported from across the city. However, areas such as Santnagar, Hajveri Town on Canal Road, Wahdat Colony, Muhafiz Town and its surrounding suburbs have been particularly hard hit by multi-hour power interruptions that have halted both domestic and commercial activities.
A resident of Punjab Civil Secretariat regretted, ‘We have been facing severe loadshedding for the last couple of days.’ ‘There was a power cut of several hours on the night of June 28. This repeated again this early morning June 29 as there was no electricity from 4am to 9am.
At present we are again without electricity since 12pm. It's the Dev Smaj Road area in Sant Nagar, Bhati Gate sub division. Please ask the Lesco high-ups to have some mercy on us, he stressed.
In addition to the immediate loss of electricity, local residents have reported that these prolonged loadshedding hours have led to severe water shortages, complicating essential household tasks and the maintenance of hygiene. Frustration and complaints from citizens have surged, emphasising the stark irony that, despite consistently paying exorbitant electricity bills, they are left without this essential public service.
As a result, affected communities have organised vigorous protests and urged the relevant authorities to urgently address this unannounced loadshedding and restore a reliable power supply.
The widespread failure of the power infrastructure is apparent across various sectors of the city, where technical malfunctions are exacerbating the hardships faced by consumers who endure prolonged blackouts due to damaged distribution transformers.
According to an official, daytime electricity demand in the region has surged beyond 5,200 MW, resulting in a significant operational shortfall, even though the National Power Control Center is supplying around 4,100 MW to the grid.
Amid the sweltering summer heat wave, the transmission and distribution network of Lesco is under immense strain.The daytime electricity demand remains relatively manageable due to the widespread adoption of private solar systems; however, the situation deteriorates drastically during the evening and night hours when solar generation drops to zero and consumer demand surges exponentially close to 6,000 MW.
This massive nighttime surge overloads the fragile distribution system, causing an exponential rise in technical complaints, system tripping, and equipment failures. To prevent a total collapse of the regional grid, authorities ultimately resorted to forced loadshedding during the night, forcing millions of citizens to endure intermittent power outages until dawn.
