Asia | July 19, 2022

First CPEC power transmission project becomes operational

Pakistan, Islamabad: The first China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project in the power evacuation and transmission sector started commercial operations.

 

China-Pakistan power transmission corridor

Image source: Arab News

Pakistan, Islamabad: The first China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project in the power evacuation and transmission sector started commercial operations.

CPEC project consists of the 660 kV HVDC Matiari-Lahore transmission line. CPEC has seen Beijing pledge over $60 B for energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan, central to China’s wider Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to develop land and sea trade routes in Asia and beyond.

HVDC technology is widely used around the world for long-distance high-power transmission from generating stations in remote areas to densely located load centres.

“It is a matter of great importance that the country finally succeeded in having the first and the biggest HVDC transmission line to evacuate 4,000 MW from power plants in the south in DC mode, transport and transmit it to Lahore after conve­r­ting it into AC mode and finally feed it to the distribution systems in the load centres in Punjab,” National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) Managing Director Azaz Ahmad said.

“With the provision of the HVDC line, there are now meagre chances of blackouts, breakdowns etc due to system constraints since the entire NTDC transmission and dispatch system has attained stability.”

Ahmad said the Matiari-Lahore line had “helped keep the system stable and saved it from a cascading affect to other parts of the country” after a power cut hit Pakistan’s financial hub of Karachi a day earlier.

The 878 km 4,000 MW project has been completed by PMLTC (Pvt) Limited on a build-own-operate-transfer basis for 25 years. The project will evacuate power from new generating units located in the country’s south. The NTDC will be responsible for the operation and maintenance of the transmission line.

 

Source: Arab News