ISLAMABAD: The Asi­an Development Bank (ADB) is considering supporting the dev­e­lopment of some of the required transmission lines through a $250 million loan to the power transmission stren­gt­hening project in Pakistan.

The project aims to support the government’s age­nda to deploy sufficient, rel­i­a­ble, clean, and cost-effective energy for sustain­able economic gro­wth by expanding the high-voltage transmission network in the northern area of the country to ensure grid stability, ener­gy security, and incre­ased transmission ca­p­­a­city to evacuate additional clean hydropower to the grid addressing the issues of high generation costs and demand-supply gap.

It will also help reduce transmission losses in the project area by replacing the old transmission lines; supporting the prioritised government reform of state-owned enterprises by enhancing the institutional, financial management, system operation, and project management capacity of the National Transmission and Despa­tch Company (NTDC).

Documents made available by ADB show that the project concerns the construction of a 500kV double circuit transmission line from the switchyard of the hydropower plant at Karot to the grid station in Islamabad via a new switching station at Maira.

The power transmission stre­n­g­thening project will consist of staged physical investments into several subprojects and is also intended to strengthen the capacity of NTDC, which is the entity responsible for bulk power transmission to distribution companies in Pakistan.

The existing transmission network is already overloaded and additional transmission lines and supporting infrastructure, such as switching stations, are needed to distribute the electricity generated by the new hydropower plants to the national grid and onwards to consumers.

The CPEC project in KP and AJK is one such initiative which will install some 4,000MW generating capa­city via up to four hydropower plants over a 200km stretch on the Jhe­l­um River and its tributaries.

Pakistan has considerable potential for hydropower as a renewable energy source and several initiatives are underway to develop hydropower pla­nts. The government estimates that the total hydropower generating capacity is some 60,000MW of which 7,116MW has been installed meaning there is considerable potential for expansion.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2023