Government seeks foreign funding for Gwadar power project

Government will arrange a foreign finance of Rs 6.637 billion for the key project of interconnection of isolated Gwadar/Makran area with national grid system (NGS). The cost of the project has been rationalised to Rs 17.421 billion from Rs 22.333 billion under the directives of the Planning Commission, which forwarded the project to ECNEC for approval.
As per working paper, main objective of the project is to provide adequate facilities for reliable and stable supply of electric power to Gwadar area.
At present, Gwadar/Makran is facing severe power shortage due to insufficient generating capacity that has brought excessive load shedding. To bridge the gap between demand and supply and to meet future power demand of the area, a 300MW coal power plant has already been planned and interconnection of that with national grid system for evacuation/transfer of power to respective load centres has been planned by QESCO through construction of 132 kV gird station at Nag along with allied 132kV double circuit transmission.
Moreover, approximately 140km 132kV double circuit and 395km 132kV single circuit transmission lines are required for interconnection of Gwadar/Makran area with national grid system.
The scope of the project include construction of new grid station at Nag, construction of 285 km 132 kV double circuit transmission line, similar single circuit transmission line, stringing of 335 km, 2nd circuit, extension of existing grid station, installation of shunt capacitors and of static VAR compensators (SVC's).
The document showed that QESCO carried out detailed system studies for interlinking Gwadar/Makran area with national grid of Pakistan and Iran along with evacuation of power from newly proposed 300MW coal power project at Gwadar.
Earlier, the cost was rationalised from Rs 14.07 billion to Rs 13.23 billion. However, NTDC informed that the project without SVCs is not feasible.
To address this issue, several meeting were held between Energy Wing, Ministry of Energy (Power Division), NTDC, QESCO and PPI (consultants who conducted the system study).
After detailed deliberations, Power Division and its entities submitted a revised PC-1 to the Energy Wing with enhanced scope of work and increased cost.
The proposed SVCs will also increase the power capability of transmission lines by ensuring system stability and would supply high reactive power demand due to upcoming high load demand of Gwadar/Makran network, including significant motor load (dynamic load) with high VAR demand.