LAHORE Karkey power plant established by Turkish Company on Saturday successfully completed its commissioning test by producing seven megawatt above from its estimated capacity of 230MW. The rental power plant is expected to start supplying power to the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) next week, a high official of PEPCO informed TheNation on Saturday. The test has been conducted under the certified independent engineers to ensure that the plant could provide power consistently without any delay, the official said. Though there were no clear indications that the rental power plant would provide additional electricity than the PEPCOs quota to meet the biggest citys electricity requirement or the PEPCO would cut the same quantity from its daily allocation of about 650MW to KESC. The experts have also raised question on the viability of the power ships by terming its production costly, which, according to the energy experts, would be considerably added to the cost of electricity bills of about 20 million PEPCOs consumers across the country. This is worth to mention here that the commercial operation date of the power plant was fixed at August 19, 2009. Since its arrival the Karkey has missed five operational dates. On the other side, when the thermal power generation is likely to reach at good position, the power output from Tarbela Dam has plunged down to its lowest level of 540 megawatt, as water storage in the largest reservoirs of the country receded to the dead level, the sources informed this scriber. Tarbela Dam has depleted to dead level, having 1,378 feet, bring down the power generation to 540 MW. The Dam with its peak outflow could add 3,478MW in the energy basket. Mangla Dam and Chashma Dam reservoirs are 20 and two feet above from their dead levels respectively. According to the sources the Tarbela power output reaching the lowest level would further worse the loadshedding across the country. Currently, the National Grid is facing above 3,000MW shortfall and the power outages in some areas of the country has reached above 12-hour daily, the sources claimed. Meanwhile, Director General of PEPCO Muhammad Khalid said the SNGPL has resumed the gas to five thermal power plants, which would add above 1,000MW electricity in the energy basket, he claimed.