LAHORE, May 5: The Water and Power Development Authority on Wednesday launched the fifth unit of the Ghazi Barotha Hydropower Project amid fears by independent experts that it might not be able to disperse power from the project in the absence of necessary infrastructure.
Four units of 290 megawatt each have already been commissioned during the last 10 months and with the fifth unit coming online, the project will start generating 1,450mw electricity in the next few week. It is currently producing only around 1,000mw due to low water supplies in the Tarbela Dam.
Experts believe that Wapda may not be able to provide power from the GBHP once Tarbela starts producing full capacity. During the last 10 months, Wapda could not construct new lines and independent switchyard for power provision from the GBHP and put it on the same line carrying power from the Tarbela Dam. It also started using switchyard at Rawat and Burhan for transporting power.
The authority managed to do so because power generation from the Tarbela Dam went down substantially during the winter. But once Tarbela hits full capacity during the coming flood season in July and August, Wapda will not be able to evacuate power from the GBHP, as it has no lines and switchyards that should be constructed years ago along with channel and the power house.
Sources in the water and power ministry, while conceding delay in construction, claimed that Wapda was directed to speed up its tendering and construction process to be able to carry power from the GBHP before the coming flood season.
"It will be a certainly a great national loss and also for the ministry if the authority will not be able to disperse cheap power from the GBHP and have to depend on costly electricity from oil-driven independent power producers," they said.
Even if the authority managed to construct new lines, it would not have any contingency plan in case of any fault in the power lines. During the hot and humid weather, contingency lines became more important because they had high chances of developing fault. "It is a precarious situation and the authority should try to make up for its loss by hastening the construction process," they said.
Anwar Khalid, Wapda's member (power), said ideally these lines and allied infrastructure should have been constructed much before commissioning of units. Now, the authority was trying hard to complete at least one transmission line before mid-July.
"Even if one transmission line becomes available, the authority will be able to disperse power from the GBHP." He conceded that there would be no fall back line in case of any crisis, but maintained that something was better than nothing.
National Transmission and Dispatch Company chief Mehar Dil said around 70 per cent of work on the power line was already complete. The project would be completed by mid-July.
"Experts, he said, are not entirely wrong in predicting delay because they know the magnitude of work, but the authority is trying its best to meet the deadline."
Talking about the switchyard for which a tender was opened on April 27, the NTDC chief claimed that it was an extension of switchyard needed for transporting power up-country. It would disturb power provision to the rest of the country.
A former member (power), however, claimed the new lines and switchyards were important, as any additional power dispersion through them would overload the rest of the system and trigger domino effect once a fault developed somewhere in the distribution system.
