Islamabad, May 24 (IANS): The 5,000 megawatts (MWs) gap between power production and demand has led to hours-long load shedding in different parts of Pakistan on Monday, local media reported.

Sources in the power division said that at the moment, state-owned and private facilities were generating around 20,229 MWs. However, with the temperature sweltering in many parts of the country, it had pushed demand up to 25,500 MWs. Consequently, there was a shortfall of around 5,271 MWs, Samaa TV reported.

The huge gap between production and demand is reportedly resulting in load-shedding which is lasting as long as 10 hours in some parts of the country, they said.

Providing a breakdown of the current power mix, sources said that the private sector was generating around 48.7 per cent of the total power in the country while state-owned plants were generating the rest.

They added that due to the increased flow of water in rivers is allowing hydroelectric facilities installed around the country to generate generating as much as 5,940 MWs.

Moreover, state-owned thermal power plants were generating around 1,190 MWs.

Power generation through renewable sources such as wind and solar stood at 689 MWs and 120 MWs respectively.

Besides this, power produced from bagasse stood at 156 MWs, while nuclear power plants were generating around 2,276 MWs.

Sources in the power division say privately owned power plants were generating a total of 9,858 MWs at the moment.

Sources added that the duration of power outages increases in areas where there is greater loss of power during transmission.