ISLAMABAD – General Electric (GE) is expecting to finish refurbishing workon 1,000 megawatts of Mangla hydropower plants within the next five yearsto bring a 35 percent increase in the station’s production capacity, thecompany’s executive said.
Sarim Sheikh, chief executive officer of GE Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistansaid the station’s refurbishing would be completed by 2023 with a cost ofaround Rs15 billion. “After completion, the plants would be able togenerate 35 percent more electricity using same amount of water.”
The project is jointly funded by a French development agency and the UnitedStates Agency for International Development.
The project is a major component of the Water and Power DevelopmentAuthority’s (Wapda) plan of adding low-cost hydropower generation toovercome shortage of electricity and maximise share of hydropower inelectricity grid.
Mangla power station, located in Kashmir, has an installed capacity of1,000MW. The existing station has 10 generating units, having capacity of100MW each with a useful life of 30 years extendable up to 35 years.
The first unit was commissioned in 1967. All units at Mangla haveefficiently been working and generating electricity since then inaccordance with their installed capacity despite completion of their usefullife long ago.
The Wapda planned to refurbish the existing Mangla hydropower station tobenefit from additional 2.88 million acres feet of water and 40 feetadditional water head available with completion of Mangla dam raisingproject in 2009.
Sheikh said the modern technology is being used to optimise generationcapacity of Mangla hydropower station. “The quantum of water, whichgenerates 1,000MW, will be sufficient to generate over 1,300MW.”
He said GE is expanding its footprints in hydropower, coal, gas andrenewable generation across the country. GE is expected to power 40 percentof the country’s overall electricity generation by 2019.
“Pakistan’s generation capacity will stand at around 35,000MW by 2019; ofwhich 14,000MW would be generated through GE equipment,” the company’sexecutive added.
On regasified liquefied natural gas- (RLNG) fired power plants, Sheikh saidHaveli Bahadurshah and Bhikki plants have achieved their commissioningfollowing rigorous testing while the Balloki plant would shortly becommissioned.