Guddu power station: Ministry to add 1500 megawatts to grid by summer

Ministry of Water and Power is to add 1500 MW electricity to the national grid from Guddu Thermal Power Station by summer 2016. Secretary Water and Power, Younas Dagha, has inaugurated an addition of 270 MW of electricity to the national grid from Guddu power plant, at Guddu. The electricity has been added from 415 MW Siemens Block of Guddu Power Complex having two gas turbines and one steam turbine. The entire plant stopped generation in 2013 due to damages in gas and steam turbines.
According to Water and Power Ministry spokesman, the present government besides initiating new power projects, has also embarked upon utilisation and rehabilitation of the existing generation capacity. In the same spirit, in 2015 work was awarded to MAPNA from Iran for rehabilitation of the 415MW Siemens' Block plant at Guddu. Rehabilitation work started on 20/11/2015 and timelines were strictly followed. With an aggressive work plan followed, first gas turbine was put on generation on January 16, 2016 while the second one began generation on March 9, 2016. With completion of work on these two turbines a total of 270MW of electricity has been added to the system, the spokesman added. Another GE gas turbine is also under rehabilitation and this will add another 100MW to the system by end April.
Inaugurating an addition of 270 MW electricity to the national grid, Dagha said that a new addition of around 450 MW is also expected from Chashma III and some wind power projects before summer this year. He said that a total of 820MW addition in the generation capacity is expected during the summer from the new power plants and rehabilitation process.
Officials present on the occasion apprised the Secretary that Ministry has set a target to achieve more than 1500MW generation from Guddu Power Complex by summer of 2016. The officials of GENCO Holding, contractors and officials of the Ministry are working hard to meet the target. The spokesman further stated that due to untiring efforts of the Ministry of Water and Power, recently 120 mmcfd gas from Mari Gas field has been allocated for Guddu Power Complex and aggressive work is in progress for installation of compressors to fully utilise the gas. The Ministry is also working on rehabilitation of Sui-Guddu pipeline to get additional gas which has a generation potential of more than 1700 mw. A proposal in this regard has been submitted to the ECC.