Tarbela to soon generate 960 MWs extra electricity
Monday, July 14, 2008
By our correspondent
GHAZI: The Tarbela Dam would produce additional 960 MW electricity soon, official sources told The News.
The project, costing $2 billion, was earlier handed over to the Private Power Infrastructure Board by the previous government, but later given to Wapda.
The Tarbela Dam, the largest water reservoir in the country, irrigates around 70 per cent of agricultural lands in the Punjab and Sindh from two tunnels, while three tunnels are used for producing 3,700 MWs electricity.
However, Wapda engineers have indicated recently that tunnel number 4 could produce 960 MWs power after installing two turbines with a capacity of 480 MWs each. Former minister for water and power Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao had handed over the project to the PIDB. However,
the project required $2 billion that could only be provided by the government by borrowing money from international financial institutions.
Chief Engineer Khursheed Anwar told The News that the Tarbela Dam Power Station had till now produced 3.4 billion megawatts of electricity. He said that according to present rates, the value of the power produced was Rs 12.6 trillion.
He said the Wapda granted permission to repair the faulty 500kv heavy transformer to local engineers, which in the past was repaired by experts from abroad. The local engineers removed the fault successfully, he added.
