LAHORE - National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) will increase its capacity up to 24,624MVA (mega volt ampere) on its 18 grid stations of 500KVA and 33,873MVA on 50 grid stations of 220KVA by year 2018.
Talking to APP here on Sunday, NTDC Managing Director Dr Fiaz Chaudhry said that transmission lines’ length would reach up to 7,127 kilometres and 10,129 kilometres among 500KVA and 220KVA grids, respectively till 2018. While, 25 more power projects would be connected to the NTDC system during this period, he added.
About recent power breakdown and tripping of grids, he said that it was not a fault of the NTDC as dense fog caused tripping, asserting that in many cases, there was tripping of 132KV grids which overloaded the entire transmission system including 220KVA grids of NTDC and this phenomenon led to tripping of protection system. He clarified that this time also, 132KVA grids tripped at first that resulted in power breakout, adding that environmental affects including mist and smog also reduced insulation/protection level on grids and led to tripping of power supply.
The NTDC managing director stressed the need for controlling environmental pollution, asserting that existence of brick-kilns and thick smoke-emitting factories in southern Punjab also affecting electricity transmission lines/conductors, tower and insulators.
Dr Fiaz added that there was also dire need for increasing maintenance practices, expert workforce and use of better instruments so as to avoid tripping and low voltage problems. To another question, he hoped that problem of power breakdown would be resolved by next year. While a total of 5000MW generation from power projects being installed at Bhikhi, Balloki, Sahiwal and Haveli Bahadur Shah would be added into the system, he maintained.
Responding to a query, the NTDC managing director said that the company had completed transmission lines projects to connect Bhikhi Combined Cycle Power Plant and Sahiwal Coal-fired Power Plant to the national grid.
