The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is thinking about lending $250 million to Pakistan’s electricity transmission improvement programme. In order to fund the development of some of the necessary transmission lines.
By extending the high-voltage transmission network in the northern part of the country. The project aims to support the government’s agenda to deploy enough reliable, clean. And affordable energy for sustained economic growth. This will ensure the grid stability, energy security. And an increased transmission capacity to evacuate additional clean hydropower to the grid. Furthermore, addressing the problems of high generation costs and demand-supply gap.
It will also support the prioritised government reform of state-owned enterprises by upgrading the administrative, financial administration. Also network operation, and project administration capacity of the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC). This will minimise transmission interruptions in the intended area by substituting the outdated transmission lines.
According to documentation made accessible by ADB, the project entails building a 500kV double circuit transmission line from the hydropower plant’s switchyard in Karot to the grid station in Islamabad via a new switching station in Maira.
The goal of the project is to increase the capability of the NTDC, which is in charge of bulk electricity transmission to distribution companies in Pakistan. The project would involve staged physical investments into a number of subprojects.
To transfer the electricity produced by the new hydropower plants to the national grid. And then to consumers, additional transmission lines and accompanying infrastructure. Such as switching stations, are required because the current transmission network is already overburdened.
One such project is the CPEC project in KP and AJK, which will install up to four hydropower facilities along a 200km stretch of the Jhelum River. And its tributaries, with a total generating capacity of approximately 4,000MW.
There are numerous efforts being made to create hydropower plants in Pakistan. Which has a lot of promise as a renewable energy source. Although only 7,116MW of the entire hydropower generating capacity has been constructed. The government considers that there is still significant room for growth.
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