It is astonishing that with an installed capacity of 46,605 MW, industry is facing 2 to 4 hours of load-shedding, while domestic and commercial consumers are enduring 7 to 16 hours of darkness every single day. Can anyone please explain the science behind this power management?
Here is what the data tells us as of April 15th 2026:
- Installed capacity: 46,605 MW
- Peak demand: 20,520 MW
- Generation during peak demand: 13,958 MW
- Shortfall: 4,090 MW
What makes this even more alarming is that summer has not fully arrived, yet today's peak demand stands at 20,520 MW, while June–August routinely crosses 30,000–33,000 MW. If we cannot manage today's load, what happens when the actual season hits?
This is not a capacity problem. This is a power sector governance and management failure.
Hydropower production has taken a significant hit as Neelum Jehlam, a cost-effective hydel project, remains non-operational, reducing the availability of cheap electricity.
Gas plants continue to sit underutilized due to fuel allocation mismanagement.
Solar capacity vanishes at night while demand peaks, with no storage or load-shifting plan in place. Transmission infrastructure cannot carry available power to where it is needed.
And through all of this, the people of Pakistan are being forced to pay for 46,605 MW of installed capacity in their electricity bills, yet the availability of that capacity when they need it most remains unavailable and deeply questionable.
The gap between what we have and what we deliver is not an engineering problem, it is a governance and management problem. Fuel planning, dispatch optimization, grid coordination, and financial discipline are the tools that close this gap.
The capacity is there. The question is: who is managing it — and how?