Efficient, secure and reliable grid operations: Chinese consortium gets NTDC project for LDS

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s National Transmission & Despatch Company Limited (NTDC) has awarded a project to a consortium of Chinese companies to deliver an all-new Load Dispatch System (LDS) to support the country’s sustainable energy goals.

The consortium comprises of China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) and Hitachi ABB Power Grids. The LDS system will help to improve grid visibility and automation, enabling the seamless integration of renewables.

The government aims at increasing the share of renewable energy in total power production to 30 percent by 2030 from existing share of four percent. The intermittent nature of solar and wind energy production means that an increasing share of renewables requires greater observability, real-time monitoring, remote control and optimisation of the power grid. The deployment of Hitachi ABB Power Grids’ industry-leading supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) application, Network Manager, with its energy management and generation management capabilities, will facilitate efficient, secure and reliable grid operations. It will deploy a SCADA Energy Management System (EMS) at NTDC’s national control center in Islamabad and at the back-up control center in Jamshoro. The system will connect the control centers with all the power plants and grid stations that are not currently monitored in real-time and will help build capacity for future stations and remote ends. The project will also involve the installation of a new mission-critical communication network with a fiberoptic foundation and featuring a microwave network as back-up. This will help to ensure always-on connectivity and prevent outages resulting from disruptions in the communication network. It will also enable secure data transmission and increased protection from cyber threats through tele-protection and near real-time encryption of operational data and signals. "This hallmark project for NTDC, financed by Asian Development Bank (ADB), will open new horizons through automation and sustainable international best practices to achieve a safe and reliable grid," said Engr. Azaz Ahmad, Managing Director, NTDC. He added, “The project will bring more visibility and control to NTDC's operations, enhancing system stability and curtailing system collapse and blackouts incidents in future.” “It’s incredibly exciting to support Pakistan’s giant leap toward a sustainable, carbon-neutral future,” said Najeeb Ahmed, Country Managing Director Hitachi ABB Power Grids in Pakistan.