LAHORE: A Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) team is set to proceed to China today (Tuesday) to carry out pre-shipment inspection of the 40MVA (Mega Volt Ampere) transformers.

Lesco is purchasing 41 transformers and other equipment from a Chinese company after the Asian Development Bank provided it with a soft loan under tranche-4 for increasing capacity of the 132kV grid station to bear the existing and future electricity load.

Official sources say that availability and installation of new transformers, circuit breakers, 11kV panels, cable and other sorts of current/voltage equipment will enable the Lesco to enhance its secondary transmission lines (132kV) capacity to receive the electricity from National Transmission and Dispatch Company’s 220kV and 500kV lines/grid stations after they will evacuate power from the four under-construction thermal power stations in Punjab in near future.

“We have purchased 41 transformers (over Rs40 million each) from company Chint China under lot No-1 of the ADB’s tranche-4. The pre-shipment inspection of 15 transformers has already been done and we will receive this first shipment soon,” Lesco Director Mr Adnan Riaz, who heads the team, told Dawn on Monday.

Purchase of 41 units is part of ADB soft loan

“Now we are going there for the pre-shipment inspection of 10 transformers that will also be dispatched to us by the end of this month,” he added.

He said the Lesco team would also leave for China again for the inspection of the remaining 16 transformers. After the inspections, the Lesco would have all transformers, he said.

Mr Riaz said at present half of the transformers installed at the 132 grid stations especially in Lahore and other Lesco service areas (Okara, Kasur, Shiekhupura and Nankana) were overloaded, causing system constraints such as low voltage, tripping, breakdowns etc. And after the installation of 41 transformers, there would be a considerable relief to the existing ones at 132kV lines, leading to smooth electricity transmission and supply to the public at large through the 11kV feeder system. “Similarly, due to upgradation the 132kV secondary transmission system will be able to bear load of nearly 5,000MW more electricity it would receive from the NTDC’s 500kV and 220kV system that will evacuate the same from the new power plants — three LNG and one coal-fired—being set up in Punjab.”

Describing the plan as integrated power generation, transmission, dispatch and distribution system, the official said, the NTDC was also upgrading its 500kV and 220kV system under the same programme.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2017