35% Electricity Can Be Generated Using Same Amount of Water
35% Electricity Can Be Generated Using Same Amount of Water: Under the project jointly funded by a French development agency and the United States Agency for International Development, General Electric (GE) is supposed to finish renovating work on 1,000 megawatts of Mangla hydropower plants within the next 5 years to bring a 35% increase in the station’s production capacity.
Sarim Sheikh, chief executive officer of GE Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan said the station’s refurbishing would be completed by 2023 with a cost of around Rs.15 billion. “After completion, the plants would be able to generate 35 percent more electricity using same amount of water.”
Project Features
The project is a major component of the Water and Power Development Authority’s (Wapda) plan of adding low-cost hydropower generation to overcome shortage of electricity and maximize share of hydropower in electricity grid.
Capacity of Mangla Power Station
Mangla power station, located in Kashmir, has an installed capacity of 1,000MW. The existing station has 10 generating units, having capacity of 100MW each with a useful life of 30 years extendable up to 35 years.
The first unit was commissioned in 1967. All units at Mangla have efficiently been working and generating electricity since then in accordance with their installed capacity despite completion of their useful life long ago.
The WAPDA planned to renovate the existing Mangla hydropower station to benefit from additional 2.88 million acres feet of water and 40 feet additional water head available with completion of Mangla dam raising project in 2009.
The modern technology is being used to optimize generation capacity of Mangla hydropower station. “The quantum of water, which generates 1,000MW, will be sufficient to generate over 1,300MW.”
General Electric In Hydro, Coal, Gas And Renewable Generation
GE is expanding its footprints in hydropower, coal, gas and renewable generation across the country. GE is expected to power 40 percent of the country’s overall electricity generation by 2019.
“Pakistan’s generation capacity will stand at around 35,000MW by 2019; of which 14,000MW would be generated through GE equipment,” the company’s executive added.
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