Islamabad: Threatened by smog, Pakistan is looking towards its all-weather friend, China, for electricity generation without interruption in smog-hit areas.

The decision was announced as different parts of the country, especially Punjab, have been facing prolonged blackouts triggered by dense smog.

The recent power outages that affected South Punjab, Upper Sindh and a few other places were triggered by the early arrival of smog, which is unprecedented and likely to continue due to a dry spell.

To deal with smog-related power breakdowns, an National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) team of experts have left for China on the directives of the Federal Minister for Power Division Sardar Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari, OINN news agency reported.

The team would study the Beijing model of electricity developed for smog to implement the same strategy in the smog-hit areas in Pakistan.

Federal Minister Awais Leghari decided to seek China’s help to get rid of smog-related issues in a meeting held to assess the country’s current electricity breakdowns caused by the new weather conditions.

The meeting was attended by officials from all distribution companies, Generation Companies (GenCos), NTDC, National Power Control Centre (NPCC) and Power Division officials. Leghari also directed that all CEOs of the Distribution companies and NTDC evolve a technically sound solution for the problem.

The minister urged that immediate measures like installation of anti-smog and anti-fog disc be taken at critical points to ensure uninterrupted power supply to consumers.

Currently, there is no shortage of electricity generation in the country but Pakistan is still facing long power outages because of unexpected weather conditions, the Minister noted.

Smog is a mixture of dust, ozone, industrial emissions, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide, and when it mixes with moisture during the night and heated by the high voltage, it results in breakage of insulators.

The Minister expressed hope that the government would resolve the issue within 10 to 15 days.

The major national electricity grid — 500 Kilovolt (KV) and 220KV transmission lines — endured outages at 82 occasions over the last four days because of stability issues caused by smog, closure of plants and low gas supply, a meeting presided over by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was informed.

Abbasi chaired a special meeting on Tuesday to review the power generation and demand in the country.