Govt working to introduce virtual grid system, says power minister

Power Minister Awais Leghari said on Wednesday that the government is pursuing a virtual grid model that would let consumers produce and store their own electricity, Dawn reported. Speaking to reporters after a National Assembly panel meeting, he said work on the rules for such grids had already begun and that the rules would be completed during the final three months of the current fiscal year. He also said power distribution companies have been told to install batteries on their networks as part of a wider push to improve the system and promote energy storage.

Leghari told the committee that load-shedding currently affects roughly 3,500 of the nation's 14,500 feeders, which he attributed to power theft and line losses. He said that within a year outages would shift from whole feeders to transformers, with an on-off control system planned for around 190,000 transformers. He added that no extra load-shedding is in place at present, while the Strait of Hormuz closure has affected LNG cargo receipts and lifted the cost of one cargo from around $30 million to more than $95 million.