ISLAMABAD - Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB) has reiterated that the country’s first High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission line project will meet its completion deadline of March 2021.
The Matiari-Lahore High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission line project will be completed as per the plan, said a spokesman of the PPIB here.
Matiari-Lahore transmission line project is being executed to transfer 4000MW electricity from Thar and other projects at Sindh. The project is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2021 at a cost of $1658.34 million.
This 878-km long transmission line project is a CPEC priority project and also first private sector transmission line project being developed under Transmission Line Policy 2015. Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) issued LoI and LoS for this project and got tariff from Nepra while China Electric Power Equipment and Tech Company (CET) is the sponsor of the project. As per the plan, the project will be completed in the first quarter of 2021. The project is being developed under build-own-operate- and transfer (BOOT) for a term of 25 years. PPIB is actively monitoring the project and determined to complete it well in time.
PPIB has already completed 37 private power projects of 15,500MW and fetched an investment of 17 billion dollars and completion of this transmission line project will be another milestone.
The project is not only the first transmission line project being developed by the private sector, but it will also be the first ever HVDC transmission line in Pakistan which features converter stations at both ends and grounding electrode stations near Lahore and Matiari.
The HVDC transmission system offers many advantages for power transmission over longer distance in terms of more transmission capacity, lesser losses and cost effectiveness. It would be bipolar HVDC technology, having approximately 880-km length and will evacuate more than 4000MW of coal based electricity from projects in Sindh province.
The projects which will be connected with this transmission line include Engro Thar 660MW, Thar coal block- I (Shangai) 1320MW, Port Qasim 1320MW, and Hub Power Port Qasim 1320MW etc.
